
Class 


h 7j ^ 


Book 




Gowrigl 


iitN?. .... 



COPYRIGHT DLPCSm 



THE STORY OF THE 
REVOLUTION 




GEORGE WASHINGTON. 

This portrait is known as the " Gibbs-Channing portrait." It 7t\n painted in ijos by Gilbert Stuart, and is ntrw owned by Mr. S. 
/'. A very, by whose kind permission it is here reproduced. 



THE STORY OF THE 
REVOLUTION 



BY 

HENRY CABOT LODGE 



ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1903 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

SEP 18 1903 

Copyright tntiy 

CLASS C^ XXc. No 

COPY B. 



Copyright, 1898, 1903, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 









TO 

THE ARMY AND NAVY OF THE UNITED STATES, 

VICTORS OF 

MANILA, SANTIAGO AND PORTO RICO, 

WORTHY SUCCESSORS OF THE SOLDIERS AND SAILORS 

WHO UNDER THE LEAD OF GEORGE WASHINGTON 

WON AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, 

THIS STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

IS DEDICATED. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 
The First Step i 



CHAPTER II. 
The First Blow . . 25 



CHAPTER III 
The Second Congress ... • • • • 53 



CHAPTER IV. 
The Reply to Lord Sandwich -j Q 



CHAPTER V. 
The Siege of Boston 97 



CHAPTER VI. 
The Spread of Revolution 1: g 

CHAPTER VII. 
Independence 136 

CHAPTER VIII. 
The Fight for the Hudson !So 



vi CONTENTS 



CHAPTER IX. 

PAGR 

Trenton and Princeton . . . . . . .202 



CHAPTER X. 
The Burgoyne Campaign ....... 228 

CHAPTER XI. 
The Results of Saratoga ....... 263 

CHAPTER XII. 
Fabius ........... 279 

CHAPTER XIII. 
How the West was Saved ....... 325 

CHAPTER XIV. 
The Invasion of Georgia ....... 353 

CHAPTER XV. 
The South Rises in Defence ...... 367 

CHAPTER XVI. 
King's Mountain and the Cowpens ..... 380 

CHAPTER XVII. 
Greene's Campaign in the South ..... 409 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
The Test of Endurani i .....•• 44$ 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Yorktown . . . . . • • • • 49 T 



CONTENTS vii 



CHAPTER XX. 

How Peace was Made. . . . . . . . C28 



CHAPTER XXL 
How the War Ended .... 



The Paris Treaty 



P ll IE 



54: 



CHAPTER XXII. 

The Meaning of the American Revolution. . . • 552 

APPENDIX 

1. 

The Declaration of Independence . . . . .579 

II. 



583 



III. 

General Washington's Address to Congress on Resigning 

His Commission ........ 589 

INDEX 59I 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



i 



. 



! 



JOHN 






ESS . 

; 

...... 

■ 

- 

- 

..... 

- 

. 
THE 1 .... 

........ 



I I 



31 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAUL REVERE ROUSING THE INHABITANTS ALONG THE ROAD TO 
LEXINGTON ........ 

PAUL REVERE, BY ST. MEMIN, 1 804 ..... 

MAJOR PITCAIRN's PISTOLS ....... 

HARRINGTON HOUSE, LEXINGTON ..... 

THE FIGHT ON LEXINGTON COMMON, APRIL 19, 1 775 . 

GENERAL VIEW OF LEXINGTON COMMON AT THE PRESENT TIME 

LORD PERCY ......... 

From a print lent by "'• C. Crane. 

BARRETT HOUSE, NEAR CONCORD ..... 

THE FIGHT AT CONCORD BRIDGE, APRIL 19, I 775 

FLAG CARRIED BY THE BEDFORD MILITIA COMPANY AT CON 
CORD BRIDGE ........ 



WRIGHT TAVERN, CONCORD, AT THE PRESENT TIME . 

RECEIPT SIGNED BY THE MINUTE MEN OF IPSWICH, MASS., WHO 
MARCHED ON THE ALARM, APRIL 1 9, 1775 

THE RETREAT FROM CONCORD ...... 

GRAVE OF BRITISH SOLDIERS, NEAR THE BRIDGE AT CONCORD 

THE MINUTE MAN AT CONCORD BRIDGE .... 

Daniel C. French, Sculptor. 

JOHN HANCOCK ......... 

F.ngraved/rom the portrait painted by Copley in /;; 7. 

THE RUINS OF TICONDEROGA, LOOKING NORTHWEST, SHOWING 
THE REMAINS OF THE BASTION AND BARRACKS 



THE CAPTURE OF TICONDEROGA BY ETHAN ALLEN 

A \l \l: VIEW OF THE RUINS OF THE OFFICERS* QV 
TICONDEROGA ...... 

THE BUNKER HILL INTRENCHING PARTY 

PRESCOTT on THE PARAPET AT BUNKER HILL . 

THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL .... 



ARTERS AT 



01 NERAL WILLIAM HOWE . 

From an engraving after Die portrait by J>o,l,l, May /?, 1786. 

JOSEPH WARREN, KILLED AT BUNKER HILL 
From a portrait painted by Copley in 1774. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi 

PAGE 

A GLIMPSE OF BUNKER HIEL MONUMENT FROM COPP's HILL 

CEMETERY ......... 92 

WASHINGTON TAKING COMMAND OF THE ARMY . . . -99 

VICINITY OF THE WASHINGTON ELM, CAMBRIDGE, AT THE PRES- 
ENT TIME ......... IOI 

A PROCLAMATION BY KING GEORGE III., AUGUST, I 775 . . 105 

Reproduced from one of the original broadsides in Dr. Emmet's collection now in the Lenox 
Library. 

CAPE DIAMOND AND THE CITADEL, QUEBEC . . . . 107 

TABLET ON THE ROCKS OF CAPE DIAMOND BEARING THE IN- 
SCRIPTION "MONTGOMERY FELL, DEC'R 3 1, 1775 " • • J °^ 

THE MONUMENT TO MONTGOMERY, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH, NEW 

YORK CITY ......... 109 

Erected by the order of Congress. 'January jy, lyfb. 

THE ATTACK ON QUEBEC . . . . . . . .Ill 

THE DESTRUCTION OF FALMOUTH, NOW THE CITY OF PORT- 
LAND, ME. . . . . . . . . .119 

In October, 1775, by a fleet under Captain Moiuatt. 

GENERAL WILLIAM MOULTRIE ....... 127 

From the painting by John Trumbull. J~gl. 

old st. Michael's church, Charleston, s. c. . . . 128 

the defence of fort sullivan, june 28, 1 7 76 . . . 131 

fort moultrie, at the present day . . . . . 1 33 

washington showing the camp at cambridge to the com- 
mittee, consisting of franklin, lynch, and harrison, 
appointed by congress ....... 147 

independence hall, philadelphia, chestnut street front 150 

thomas paine .......... 155 

From painting by C. //'. Peale, 17S3. 
ROGER SHERMAN ......... 15 7 

From the painting by Ralph Earle, l~Sj. 

ROBERT MORRIS .......... 159 

From a fainting by Edward Savage, iyqo. 

THOMAS JEFFERSON ......... l6l 

From the painting by Charles ll'illson Peale. Ijgi. 

VIEW OF INDEPENDENCE HALL FROM THE PARK SIDE . . 163 



xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

STAIRWAY IN INDEPENDENCE MAIL ...... 164 

FAC-SIMILE OF A PART OF THE ROUGH DRAFT OF THE DECLAR- 
ATION OF INDEPENDEN< E . . . . . . . 165 

From an a B rstadt of the original in the Department oj State, at Washington, D.C. 

Room IN INDEPENDENCE HALL IN WHICH THE DECLARATION 

WAS SIGNED . . . . . . . . .167 

READING THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE TO THE TROOPS 
IN NEW YORK, VSSEMBLED ON THE COMMON, Now CITY 
HALL PARK, OLD ST. PAUL'S IN THE BACKGROUND . . 169 

FROM THE RESOLI ["IONS ADOPTED BY CONGRESS, JULY 5, 1776 . I 7 1 

Fac-similt of a port of the original draft belonging to the Emmet , i the Lenox 

Library. 

TEARING DOWN THE LEADEN STATUE OF GEORGE III., ON BOWL- 
ING GREEN, NEW YORK, TO CELEBRATE THE SHINING OF 
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE . . . • '73 

THOMAS JEFFERSON WRITING THE DECLARATION OF INDEPEND- 
ENCE . . . . . . . . . - 17 7 

GENERAL NATHANIEL GREENE ....... I 87 

From the fainting by Charles Willson Peale, /;■;. 

PART OF TABLET MARKING THE LINE OF DEFENCE AT THE 

BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND ....... 1 89 

pi a \ Sons, of the Ri volution. 

GENERAL ISRAEL PUTNAM ........ I90 

From a portrait by I!. I. Thotnpson, after a pencil-sketch from life by John Trumbull. 

BATTLE PASS, PROSPECT PARK, BROOKLYN ..... 19I 

PRESENT VIEW FROM OLD FORT PUTNAM (NOW FORT GREENE), 

BROOKLYN ....••••• J 9 2 

111! RETREAT FROM LONG ISLAND ...... 193 

'THE JUMEL MANSION, WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NEW YORK CITY . 197 

SITE OF FORT WASHINGTON, NEW YORK CITY, LOOKING TOWARD 

FORT III ...•••••• ^99 

mil retreat through 'the jerseys ..... 203 

Washington's troops disembarking on 'the teen ton shore 

11i the delaware river ...... 209 

;ill point at which washington crossed the delaware 

R I \ I R 2 11 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



xni 



THE SURPRISE AT TRENTON . 

OLD KING STREET (NOW WARREN STREET), TRENTON 






A "CALL TO ARMS ....... 

Reproduced, for the first time, in facsimile [reduced) from the original document. 

QUAKER MEETING-HOUSE, NEAR PRINCETON 

THE BATTLE OF PRINCETON ..... 

STONY BROOK BRIDGE, NEAR PRINCETON 

HOUSE AND ROOM IN WHICH GENERAL MERCER DIED 

NASSAU HALL, PRINCETON, ERECTED 1 756 . 

GENERAL PHILIP SCHUYLER ..... 

From the painting by Trumbull ( 1792) in the Vale College Art Gallery. 

RUINS OF OLD FORT FREDERICK, CROWN POINT AT THE PRES- 
ENT TIME ......... 

THE HOME OF GENERAL PHILIP SCHUYLER AT OLD SARATOGA, 
NEAR SCHUYLERVILLE ....... 

GENERAL JOHN BURGOYNE ........ 

From an engraving (after the fainting by Gardner) published in 1784. 

THE RAVINE AT ORISKANY, NEW YORK ..... 

BATTLE OF ORISKANY ......... 

GENERAL HERKIMER'S HOUSE AT DANUBE, NEAR LITTLE FALLS, 
NEW YORK ......... 

OLD STONE CHURCH AT GERMAN FLATS IN THE MOHAWK VAL- 
LEY ........... 

CASTLE CHURCH, NEAR DANUBE, IN THE MOHAWK VALLEY 

GENERAL JOHN STARK ........ 

From ,» painting (after Trumbull) by U. D. Tcnney, at the State Capitol at Concord. N. H. 

THE BATTLE OF BENNINGTON ....... 

CATAMOUNT TAVERN, BENNINGTON, VT., THE HEAD-QUARTERS OF 
GENERAL STARK AND THE COUNCIL OF SAFETY 

Drawn from an old photograph. 

MONUMENT AVENUE, BENNINGTON, AT THE PRESENT TIME 

GENERAL HORATIO GATES ........ 

From the hitherto unpublished portrait painted by X. F. Pine, 178J. 



213 

215 
2l6 

2l8 
219 
221 

222 
224 
232 

233 

234 
235 

236 

237 

239 

240 
241 
242 

245 

247 

247 
249 



xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PACE 

OLD BATTLE WELL ON FREEMAN'S FARM. AT THE PRESENT 

TIME . . • • • • • • • ■ 2 5 l 

CELLAR AT THE PRESENT TIME IN THE MARSHALL HOUSE, 
SCHUYLERVILLE, WHICH WAS USED AS A HOSPITAL FOR 
THE BRITISH ......... 252 

THE BURIAL OF GENERAL FRASER .... . 253 

SURRENDER OF BURGOYNE — FAC-SIMILE (REDUCED) OF A PART 

OF THE ORIGINAL ARTICLES OF CAPITULATION . . 257 

Reproduced, by permission, from the original document in tfu colle, ': n of the New York Histori- 
cal s , 

si RRENDER OF BURGOYNE ........ 259 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN ......... 273 

From the fainting by Duplessis, i~S, in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia. 

Washington's head-quarters, near chad's ford, at the 

time of the battle of the brandywine . . . 283 

Lafayette's head-quarters, near chad's ford, during the 

battle of the brandywine ...... 284 

battle of the brandywine ....... 285 

birmingham meeting-house, near chad's ford . . . 287 

baron k.nyphausen, commander of the hessians in the 

war between england and the united states. . 289 

Frotn a drawing, the original of which is in the possession of the Knyphausen family. 

THE CHEW HOUSE, GERMANTOWN ...... 292 

THE ATTACK UPON THE CHEW HOUSE ..... 293 

THE REPULSE OF THE HESSIANS UNDER COUNT DONOP AT FORT 

MERCER .......... 297 

LAI \N ETTE .......... 300 

Ft >n a portrait painted by (. //'. Peale in rjiofor Washington. 

IHI OLD POTTS HOUSE AT VALLKV FORGE, USED BY WASHING- 
TON AS HEAD-QUARTERS ....... 301 

VIEW FROM FORI HUNTINGTON, WITH A PLAN OF THE INTRENCH- 

MENTS REMAINING AT VALLEY FORGE .... 303 

mm OATH "I ALLEGIANCE TO THE UNITED STATES, SIGNED BY 

TIM HT I ARNOLD AT VU.I.I.N FORGE, 1778 . . . 304 

OLD BELL USED IN THE CAMP AT VAII.n FORGE . . . 305 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



XV 



WINTER AT VALLEY FORGE ..... 

HOUSE IN ARCH STREET, PHILADELPHIA, WHERE BETSY ROSS 
MADE THE FIRST AMERICAN FLAG FROM THE DESIGN 
ADOPTED BY CONGRESS ... ... 

BARON STEUBEN ......... 

Painted by C. II'. Peale. in 1780. 

BATTLE OF MONMOUTH ........ 

COLONEL DANIEL BOONE ........ 

From a portrait by Cluster Harding. 

GENERAL GEORGE ROGERS CLARK ...... 

From an original miniature ascribed to J. II'. Jarvis. 

clark on the way to kaskaskia ...... 

Clark's surprise at kaskaskia ...... 

clark's advance against vincennes ...... 

general benjamin lincoln ....... 

From a portrait fainted fry C. II'. Peale, in 1784. 

COUNT PULASKI .......... 

From an engraving by Ant. Oles:c:yusti. 

ATTACK ON SAVANNAH, OCTOBER 8, I 779 . 

PART OF THE ARTICLES OF CAPITULATION AGREED ON AT THE 

SURRENDER OF FORT MOULTRIE ..... 

Reproduced in fat-simile from the original in the Emmet collection, Lenox Library. 

THE FIRST AND LAST PARTS OF SIR HENRY CLINTON'S OFFER OF 
PARDON TO REBELS IN 17S0 ...... 

From the original document belonging to the Emmet collection in the Lenox Library. 

FAC-SIMILE (REDUCED) OF THE FIRST AND LAST PARTS OF PATRICK 
HENRY'S LETTER OF INSTRUCTIONS TO GEORGE ROGERS 
CLARK .......... 

From "The Conquest of the Northwest," by William E. English. 

A BRITISH WAGON-TRAIN SURPRISED BY MARION . 



PAGE 

3°7 



GENERAL ANDREW PICKENS 
From a copy by John Stolte of the 01 



312 
315 
321 

334 

335 

34* 
344 
349 
356 

358 
359 

3 6 3 
365 

368 

37° 
37i 



luting by Thomas Sully. 



XVI 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



THE BATTLE OF KINGS MOUNTAIN 

THE BAYONET CHARGE BY THE SECOND MARYLAND BRIGADE AT 
THE BATTLE OF CAMDEN ...... 

THE MEETING OF GREENE AND GATES AT CHARLOTTE, N. C. 
UPON THE FORMER'S ASSUMING COMMAND 

THE COMBAT BETWEEN COLONELS WASHINGTON AND TARLETON 
AT THE BATTLE OF THE COWPENS . 

A LETTER OF TARLETON ..... 
In the Dreer collection, Pennsylvania Historical Society. 

GENERAL DANIEL MORGAN ..... 
From the portrait by Charles IVillson Peale, 1794. 

THE FIELD OF GREENE'S (ITERATIONS IN THE SOUTH 
THE BATTLE OF GUILFORD COURT HOUSE . 
THE BATTLE OF HOBKIRK'S HILL 
THE BATTLE OF EUTAW SPRINGS 
THE EVACUATION OF CHARLESTON BY THE BRITISH, DECEMBER 
14, I7 82 

ANTHONY WAYNE ..... 

From an unpublished portrait by Henry Elouiz, 1795. 

STONY POINT ...... 

THE CAPTURE OF STONY POINT T.Y WAYNE 

MAJOR HENRY LIE ("LIGHT HORSE HARRY ") 
/•><>/; ,1 painting by ( . //'. Peale in 17SS. 

Mil CAPTURE <>T PAULUS HOOK BY MAJOR LEE 
GENERAL BENEDIC1 ARNOLD IN 1778 

After the drawing by /'. Du Simitiirc* 

llll HUDSON RIVER AT WEST POINT . 

.Hi. FORI PI TNAM — 'THE KEY TO THE DIM Ml- AT WEST 
POINT — SHOWING THE MAGAZINES . 

KEAD-QUARTERS AT TAPPAN FROM WHICH Mil ORDER FOR 
VNDRE'S EXEC1 Tl' in WAS ISSUED .... 

THE HOUSE IN WHICH ANDRE" WAS IMPRISONED . 

ARNOLD TELLS lll> Will 01 THE DISCOVERY OF HIS TREASON 



PAGE 

3«7 

39 2 

397 

403 
407 

411 

4i3 
42 1 
429 
437 

443 
457 

45* 
461 

463 

465 
474 

478 

4S0 

481 

483 
485 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xvii 



TACK 



LETTER FROM GENERAL WASHINGTON TO COLONEL WADE, APPRIS- 
ING him of Arnold's treason 488 

Reproduced ,n facsimile for the first time from the original in the possession of Francis II. 
Hade, Esq., of Ipswich, Mass., a grandson of Colonel Wade. 

PART OF THE GREAT CHAIN (NOW IN THE COLLECTION OF RELICS 
AT WEST POINT) WHICH WAS STRETCHED ACROSS THE 
HUDSON BETWEEN WEST POINT AND CONSTITUTION ISLAND 
TO OBSTRUCT NAVIGATION 4 tS 9 

CHARLES, EARL CORNWALLIS 497 

After an engraving by F. Harvard, published in 1784. 

HALL IN CARTER'S GROVE, AN OLD COLONIAL MANSION ON THE 

JAMES RIVER ...•••••" 5°3 

THE HOME OF THE PRESIDENT OF WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE 

AT WILLIAMSBURG, VA 5°4 

COMTE DE ROCHAMBEAU 5°7 

From a portrait by C. 11'. Peale, 1781. 

YORK. RIVER, SEEN FROM THE INNER BRITISH WORKS, AND LOOK- 
ING TOWARD GLOUCESTER POINT 5 IQ 

PRESENT APPEARANCE OF THE BRITISH INTRENCHMENT AT 
YORKTOWN, WITH A MAP SHOWING THE POSITION OF THE 
FRENCH AND AMERICAN TROOPS . . • • • -> 

THE HOME OF CHANCELLOR WYTHE AT WILLIAMSBURG, WHERE 
WASHINGTON STOPPED ON HIS WAY TO THE SIEGE OF 

. sis 

YORKTOWN • • -3D 

WASHINGTON FIRING THE FIRST GUN AT THE SIEGE OF YORK- 
TOWN . . • • • • • * * 5 1 7 

THE HOUSE OF GOVERNOR NELSON AT YORKTOWN . . • 5 2 ° 

THE MOORE HOUSE, IN WHICH THE CAPITULATION WAS SIGNED . 5 21 

THE SIEGE OF YORKTOWN ° " 3 

YORKTOWN, 1833, FROM THE FIELD OF ITS SURRENDER BY LORD 

CORNWALLIS . • • • • ■ ' * * 5 2 5 

THE PRINCIPAL STREET IN YORKTOWN 5-7 

CHARLES JAMES FOX 53 T 

From mezzotint by John Gilbank, 1806. 

LORD SHELBURNE . ° • 53 1 

From an engraving by Bar tolozzi after Gainsborough, 1787. 



xviii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

charles gravier com ii'. de vergennes ..... 534 

benjamin franklin and richard oswald discussing the 

treaty of peace at paris ...... 537 

Washington's farewell to his officers ... . 547 

the home of george washington at mount vernon, with 

THE INTERIOR OF HIS ROOM . . . . . • 55 1 

ALEXANDER HAMILTON ......... 569 

From the painting by ?o/:i: Trumbull, 1792. 



MAPS 

PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL . . . . -72 

After the m>i/> made from the utrveys ' the British Captain Montresor by Lieutenant Page, 
neral Howe. 

THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND ....... 186 

From ,1 British »nif> 0/ 1-76. 

MAP OF THE SCENE OF THE BURGOYNE CAMPAIGN .... 231 

MAP SHOWING THE SCENE OF OPERATION'S PRECEDING THE BATTLE 

OF MONMOUTH . . , . . „ = . -317 



THE STORY OF THE 
REVOLUTION 



THE STORY OF THE 
REVOLUTION 



CHAPTER I 

THE FIRST STEP 

IN 1774 Philadelphia was the largest town in the Amer- 
ican Colonies. Estimates of the population, which are 
all we have, differ widely, but it was probably not far 
from 30,000. A single city now has a larger population 
than all the colonies possessed in 1774, and there are in the 
United States to-day 104 cities and towns of over 30,000 
inhabitants. Figures alone, however, cannot express the 
difference between those days and our own. Now a town 
of 30,000 people is reached by railroads and telegraphs. It 
is in close touch with all the rest of the world. Business 
brings strangers to it constantly, who come like shadows 
and so depart, unnoticed, except by those with whom they 
are immediately concerned. This was not the case in 1 774, 
not even in Philadelphia, which was as nearly as possible 
the central point of the colonies as well as the most popu- 
lous city. Thanks to the energy and genius of Franklin, 
Philadelphia was paved, lighted, and ordered in a way al- 
most unknown in any other town of that period. It was 



2 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

well built and thriving. Business was active and the peo- 
ple, who were thrift v and prosperous, lived well. Yet, de- 
spite all these good qualities, we must make an effort of the 
imagination to realize how quietly and slowly life moved 
then in comparison to the pace of to-day. There in Phil- 
adelphia was the centre of the postal system of the conti- 
nent, and the recently established mail-coach called the 
"Flying Machine," not in jest but in praise, performed the 
journey to New York in the hitherto unequalled time of 
two days. Another mail at longer intervals crept more 
slowly to the South. Vessels of the coastwise traffic, or 
from beyond seas, came into port at uncertain times, and 
after long and still more uncertain voyages. The daily 
round of life was so regular and so uneventful that any in- 
cident or any novelty drew interest and attention in a way 
which would now be impossible. 

In this thriving, well-conditioned, prosperous colonial 
town, strangers, like events, were not common, and their ap- 
pearance was sure to attract notice, especially if they gave 
evidence of distinction or were known to come with an 
important purpose. We can guess easily, therefore, at the 
interest which was felt by the people of Philadelphia in the 
strangers from other colonies who began to appear on their 
streets in the late summer of 1774, although these visitors 
were neither unexpected nor uninvited. They were re- 
ceived, too, with the utmost kindness and with open arms. 
We can read in the diary of John Adams how he and his 
companions from Massachusetts were feted and dined, and 
we can learn from the same authority how generous were 
the tables and how much richer was the living among the 
followers of William Penn than among the descendants of 
the Puritans. 



THE FIRST STEP 3 

But these men from Massachusetts and from the other 
colonies had not travelled over rough roads and long dis- 




CARPENTERS' HALL, PHILADELPHIA. 



tances simply to try the liberal hospitality of the Quakers 
of Philadelphia. They had come there on far more serious 
business and with a grave responsibility resting upon them. 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 




JOHN J A V. 

The earliest known portrait of him, en- 
graved, in 1783, from n pencil drawing 
rj /hi Similiire, madt in 1779. 



On September 5th they assem- 
bled at the City Tavern, and went 
thence together to the hall of the 
Carpenters, \v h e r e they deter- 
mined to hold their meetings. 
We can readily imagine how the 
little town was stirred and inter- 
ested as these men passed along 
its streets that September morn- 
ing from the tavern to the hall. 
The bystanders who were watch- 
ing them as they walked by were 
trying, no doubt, after the fash- 
ion of human nature, to pick out and identify those whose 
names were already familiar. We may be sure that they 
noticed Christopher Gadsden and the two Rutledges from 
South Carolina; they must have marked John Jay's calm, 
high-bred face, and the vener- 
able figure of Hopkins of 
Rhode Island, while Roger 
Sherman of Connecticut, tall, 
grave, impressive, with his 
strong, handsome features, 
could have been readily identi- 
fied. They certainly looked 
with especial eagerness for the 
Massachusetts delegates, their 
curiosity, we may believe, min- 
gled with something of the 
suspicion and dread which 
these particular men then in- 
spired in slow-moving, conserv- 




JOflX ADAMS. 
From a painting /'j Blyth, 1763 




SAMUEL ADAMS. 
Engra-vedfrom tHe portrait painted by Copley in J 77 J. Nov in possession of tne Boston Museum of Fine Arts. 



THE FIRST STEP 7 

ative Pennsylvania. When the Boston men came alone", 
there must have been plenty of people to point out a short, 
sturdy, full-blooded man, clearly of a restless, impetuous, 
and ardent temperament, and to tell each other that there 
was John Adams, the distinguished lawyer and brilliant 
debater, whose fame in the last few years had spread far 
from his native town. With him was to be seen an older 
man, one still better known, and regarded as still more 
dangerous, whose fame had gone even across the water to 
England, Samuel Adams of Boston. He was taller than 
his cousin, with a somewhat stern, set face of the Puritan 
type. He was plainly dressed, very likely in dark-brown 
cloth, as Copley painted him, and yet his friends had 
almost by force fitted him out with clothes suitable for this 
occasion, simple as they were, for if left to himself he 
would have come as carelessly and roughly clad as was 
his habit at home. A man not much given to speech, an 
organizer, a manager and master of men, relentless in pur- 
pose, a planner of revolution, with schemes and outlooks 
far beyond most of those about him. Yes, on the whole, 
here was a man dangerous to people in high places whom 
he meant to disturb or oppose. 

And after the bystanders had watched curiously the 
New England group, they looked next for those who came 
from the great colony of Virginia, which, with Massachu- 
setts, was to sway the Congress and carry it forward to 
stronger measures than the other colonies then desired. 
Conspicuous among the Virginians they saw an eminent 
member of the Randolph family, and those who were well 
informed no doubt wondered why they did not see by Ran- 
dolph's side the slight figure and keen face of Richard 
Henry Lee, a fit representative of the great Virginian 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 




PEYTON' RANDOLrif, OF VIRGINIA, 
THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE 
( •< WTINENTA I. Ct WGRESS. 

From a fainting by < . IV. Peale, /;:/. 



name, who had come to Phila- 
delphia, but did not appear in 
Congress until the second day. 
All these Virginian delegates, 
indeed, were well known, by 
reputation at least, and there 
could have been no difficulty 
in singling out among them 
the man whose fiery eloquence 
had brought the* cry of "Trea- 
son " ringing about his ears in 
the House of Burgesses. The 
name of Patrick Henry had 
been sent across the water, like 
that of Samuel Adams, and we 
may be sure that the crowd was looking with intense curi- 
osity for a sight of the already famous orator. When 
they found him they saw a tall, spare man, nearly forty years 
of age, with a slight stoop of 
the shoulders, a strong, well- 
cut face, and keen, penetrating 
eyes deeply set beneath a broad 
high forehead on .which the 
furrows of thought had already 
come. They must have noted, 
too, that he was negligently 
dressed, and that he had a very 
grave, almost severe, look, un- 
til a smile came, which light- 
ed up his face and showed all 
the kindliness and sympathy richard henry lee, of vir- 
of an emotional nature. 




ginia. 

Painting by i . ir. Ptalt, tjgi. 



THE FIRST STEP 9 

The names of Henry and of Adams were more familiar 
just at that moment than those of any others. They were 
the men who by speech and pen had done more than 
anyone else to touch the heart and imagination of the 
people in the progress of those events winch had caused 




GEORGE WASHINGTON AT THE AGE OF FORTY. 



Painted by Charles irillson Peale, 1772. Tin's fie.':, re sho 



Washington in the uniform 0/ a Virginian 



this gathering in Philadelphia. Yet there was one man 
there that dav who had made no speeches and drawn no 
resolutions, but who, nevertheless, was better known than 
any of them, and who, alone, among them all, had a 
soldier's fame won on hard-fought fields. There was not 
much need to point him out, for he was the type of man 
that commands attention and does not need identification. 



io THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

Very tall and large, admirably proportioned, with every 
sign of great physical strength ; a fine head and face of 
power, with a strong jaw and a mouth accurately closed ; 
calm and silent with a dignity which impressed everv- 
one who ever entered his presence, there was no need 
to tell the onlookers that here was Colonel Washing- 
ton. What he had done they knew. What he was yet 
to do no one dreamed, hut such was the impression 
he made upon all who came near him that we mav easily 
believe that the people who gazed at him in the streets 
felt dumbly what Patrick Henry said for those who 
met him in the Congress : " Washington is unquestion- 
ably the greatest of them all." Thus he came to the 
opening scene of the Revolution as he went back to 
Mount Vernon at the war's close, quietly and silently, the 
great figure of the time, the doer of deeds to whom Con- 
gress and people turned as by instinct. On the way to 
Philadelphia, Pendleton and Henry had joined him at 
Mount Vernon and passed the night there, hospitably re- 
ceived in the Virginian fashion both by their host and by 
Mrs. Washington, who was a woman of pronounced views 
and had the full courage of her convictions. To Pendle- 
ton and Henry she said : "I hope you will all stand firm. 
1 know George will." It is a delightful speech to have 
been spared to us through the century, with its knowledge 
of her husband's character and its touch of wifely com- 
mand. Only a few years before, a mother across the water 
had been saying to her son, "George, be a king," and the 
worthy, stubborn man with his limited intelligence was 
trying now to obey that mother in his own blundering 
fashion. How far apart they seem, the German Princess 
and the Virginian lady, with their commands to husband 



THE FIRST STEP 



ii 



and to son. And yet the great forces of the time were 
bringing the two men steadily together in a conflict which 
was to settle the fate of a nation. They were beginning 
to draw very near to each other on that September morn- 
ing ; the king by accident of birth, and the king who 
would never wear a crown, but who was appointed to lead 




THE ASSEMBLY ROOM, CARPENTERS' HALL, WHERE THE CONTINENTAL 
CONGRESS FIRST MET. 



men by the divine right of the greatness of mind and will 
which was in him. 

George Washington, ascending the steps of Carpen- 
ters' Hall, knew all about the other George, and had been 
proud to call himself the loyal subject of his namesake. 
The British George, with no English blood in his veins, 
except the little drop which came to him from the poor 
Winter Queen, had probably never heard even the name 
of the American soldier, although he was destined to learn 



12 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

a great deal about him in the next few years. Vet Wash- 
ington was much the best-known man in America, with 
the single exception of Franklin, whose scientific work 
and whose missions to England had given him a European 
reputation. Washington had commanded the troops in 
that little action in the wilderness when the first shot of 
the Seven Years' War was fired, a war in which Frederick 
of Prussia had made certain famous campaigns and which 
had cost France her hold on North America. Later he 
had saved the wretched remnants of Braddock's army, his 
name had figured in gazettes, and had been embalmed m 
Horace Walpole's letters. That, however, was all twenty 
years before, and was probably quite forgotten in 1774 
outside America. Samuel Adams was known in England, 
as Percy was known to the Prince of Wales, for a " very 
valiant rebel of that name." Possibly John Adams and 
Patrick Henry had been heard of in similar fashion. But 
as a whole, the members of the first American Congress 
were unknown outside the colonies, and many of them 
were not known beyond the limits of the particular colony 
they represented. To England and her ministers and 
people these forty or fifty grave gentlemen, lawyers, mer- 
chants, and planters, were merely a body of obscure col- 
onial persons who were meeting in an unauthorized man- 
ner for distinctly treasonable and objectionable purposes. 
To the courts of Europe, engaged at the moment in 
meaningless intrigues, either foreign or domestic, and all 
alike grown quite dim now, this Colonial Congress was 
not even obscure, it was not visible at all. Vet, thought- 
lull}" regarded, it deserved consideration much better 
than anything which just then engaged the attention ol 
Europe. Fifteen years later its utterances were to be 



THE FIRST STEP 13 

quoted as authority, and its example emulated in Paris 
when an ancient monarchy was tottering to its fall. It 
was the start of a great movement which was to sweep on 
until checked at Waterloo. This same movement was to 
begin its march again in 1830 in the streets of Paris and 
carry the reform of the British Parliament two years later. 
It was to break forth once more in 1848 and keep steadily 
on advancing and conquering, although its work is still 
incomplete even among the nations of Western civiliza- 
tion. Yet, no one in Europe heeded it at the moment, 
and they failed to see that it meant not simply a colonial 
quarrel, not merely the coming f a new nation, but the 
rising of the people to take their share in the governments 
of the earth. It was in fact the first step in the great 
democratic movement which has made historv ever since. 
The columns were even then beginning to move, and the 
beat of the drums could be heard faintly in the quiet Phil- 
adelphia streets. They were still distant, but they were 
ever drawing nearer, and their roll went on rising louder 
and louder, until at last they sounded in the ears of men 
from Concord Bridge to Moscow. 

Why did this come about ? Why was it that the first 
step in a world Revolution destined to wrest her colo- 
nies from England, bring a reign of terror to France, and 
make over the map of Europe before it passed away, was 
taken in the peaceful town of Philadelphia ? There was 
nothing inevitable about the American Revolution, con- 
sidered by itself. The colonics were very loyal, very 
proud to be a part of the great British Empire. If the 
second-rate men who governed England at that time had 
held to the maxim of their great predecessor, Sir Robert 
Walpole, quieta non movere, and like him had let the col- 



14 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

onies carefully alone; or if they had been ruled by the 
genius of Pitt and had called upon the colonies as part of 
the empire to share in its glories and add to its greatness, 
there would have been no American Revolution. But they 
insisted on meddling, and so the trouble began with the 
abandonment of Walpole's policy. They added to this 
blunder by abusing and sneering at the colonists instead of 
appealing, like Pitt, to their loyalty and patriotism. Even 
thru, alter all their mistakes, they still might have saved 
the situation which they had themselves created. A few 
concessions, a return to the old policies, and all would 
have been well. They made every concession finally, but 
each one came just too late, and so the colonies were lost 
by sheer stupidity and blundering on the part of the king 
and his ministers. 

From this point of view, then, there was nothing inev- 
itable about the American Revolution. It was created by 
a series of ministerial mistakes, each one of which could 
have been easily avoided. From another point of view, 
however, it was absolutely inevitable, the inexorable result 
of the great social and political forces which had long 
been gathering and now were beginning to move forward. 
The first resistance to the personal monarchies which grew 
up from the ruins of the feudal system came in England, 
the freest and best-governed country in the world of the 
seventeenth century. The people rose and destroyed the 
personal government which Charles I. tried to set up, not 
because they were oppressed and crushed by tyranny, nor 
because they had grievances too heavy to be borne, but be- 
cause they were a free people, jealous of their rights, with 
the instinct of liberty strong within them. In the same 
way when the great democratic movement started, at the 



THE FIRST STEP 15 

close of the eighteenth century, it began in England, where 
there was no despotic personal monarchy, where personal 
liberty was most assured, and where freedom existed in the 
largest measure. The abuses of aristocracy and monarchy 
in England were as nothing to what they were on the con- 
tinent. The subjects of George III. were not ground 
down by taxes, were not sold to military service, were not 
trampled on by an aristocracy and crushed by their king. 
They were the freest, best-governed people on earth, faulty 
as their government no doubt was in many respects. Yet 
it was among the English-speaking people that we detect 
the first signs of the democratic movement, for, as they 
were the least oppressed, so they were the most sensitive 
to any abuse or to any infringement upon the liberties 
they both prized and understood. The entire English peo- 
ple, both at home and abroad, were thus affected. The 
Middlesex elections, the career of Wilkes, the letters of 
Junius, the resolution of Burke against the increasing 
power of the Crown, the rising demand for Parliamentary 
reform, the growing hostility to the corrupt system of bar- 
gain and intrigue, by which the great families parcelled out 
offices and seats and controlled Parliament, all pointed in 
the same direction, all were signs of an approaching storm. 
If the revolution had not come in the American colonies, 
it would have come in England itself. The storm broke 
in the colonies for the same reason which had made the 
English strike down at its very inception the personal mon- 
archy of the seventeenth century, and which forced them 
to be the first to exhibit signs of deep political unrest in 
the last quarter of the eighteenth century. The colonies 
were the least-governed, the best-governed, and the freest 
part of the dominion of Great Britain. A people who for 



i6 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

a hundred and fifty years had practically governed them- 
selves, and who, like all other English-speaking people, 
understood the value of their liberties, were the quickest 
to feel and to resent any change which seemed to signify 
a loss of absolute freedom, and were sure to be the most 
jealous of anything like outside interference. America 
rebelled, not because the colonies were oppressed, but 
because their inhabitants were the freest people then in the 
world, and did not mean to suffer oppression. They did 
not enter upon resistance to England to redress intolerable 
grievances, but because they saw a policy adopted which 
they rightly believed threatened the freedom they possessed. 
As Burke said, they judged "the pressure of the grievance 
by tin- badness of the principle," and " snuffed the approach 
of tyranny in every tainted breeze." They were the most 
dangerous people in the world to meddle with, because 
they were ready to fight, not to avenge wrongs which in- 
deed they had not suffered, but to maintain principles upon 
which their rights and liberty rested. The English min- 
istry had begun to assail those principles ; they were mak- 
ing clumsy and hesitating attempts to take money from the 
colonies without leave of the people ; and George, in a be- 
lated way, was trying to be a king and revive an image of 
the dead and gone personal monarchy of Charles I. Hence 
came resistance, very acute in one colony, shared more or 
less by all. Hence the Congress in Philadelphia and the 
great popular movement starting as if inevitably in that 
quiet colonial town among the freest portion of the liberty- 
loving English race. 

It was these great forces which, moving silently and 
irresistibly, had brought these English colonists from their 
plantations and offices, and sent them along the streets of 



THE FIRST STEP 17 



GENERA L JOHN SULLll ". I N. 

From the original pencil-sketch made by John Trumbull, at Exeter, .V. II., in i~no. Now published, for the first 
time, by the permission of his grandson, in -whose possession the original noiv is. 

Philadelphia to Carpenters' Hall. The deepest causes of 
the movement, stretching- far out among the nations of the 
West, were quite unrecognized then, but nevertheless the 
men were there to carry on the work, forty-four of them 
in all, and representing eleven colonies. In a few days 
North Carolina's delegates appeared, and one by one others 



i8 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

who had been delayed, until fifty-five members were present, 
and all the colonies represented but Georgia. They went 
to work after the orderly fashion of their race, elected 
Peyton Randolph, of Virginia, President, and Charles 
Thomson, a patriotic citizen of Philadelphia, Secretary. 
Then they turned to the practical and very far-reaching 
question of how they should vote, whether by colonies or 
by population. "A little colony," said John Sullivan, of 
New Hampshire, " has its all at stake as well as a great 
one." " Let us rest on a representation of men," said 
Henry. " British oppression has effaced the boundaries of 
the several colonies ; the distinctions between Virginians, 
Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are 
no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American." Two 
contending principles on which American history was to 
turn were thus announced at the very outset. Sullivan's 
was the voice of the time, of separation and State rights. 
Henry's was the voice of the distant future, of union and 
of nationality. It took more than eighty years of union, 
and a great civil war, to establish the new principle pro- 
claimed by Henry. At the moment it had no chance, and 
the doctrine of Sullivan, in harmony with every prejudice 
as well as every habit of thought, prevailed, and they de- 
cided to vote by colonies, each colony having one vote. 

Then they appointed committees and fell to work. 
There was much debate, much discussion, many wide dif- 
ferences of opinion, but these lovers of freedom sat with 
closed doors, and the result, which alone reached the world, 
went forth with all the force of unanimous action. We 
know now what the debates and the differences were, and 
they are not of much moment. The results are the im- 
portant things, as the Congress wisely thought at the time. 






THE 




Association. » c . 



lc&;<^^/L 



1/^2,2? 4774: 






'E, his Majefty ? s raoft loyal fubjects, the 
Delegates of the feveral Colonies of 
New-Hamp(hire, Maffachufett's Bay, Rhode- 
Ifland, Connecticut, New- York, New Jerfey, 
. Pennfylvania, the Three Lower Counties of 
Newcaftle, Kent, and Suffcx, on Delaware, 
Maryland, Virginia, North-Carolina, and South- 
Carolina, deputed to reprefent them in a conti- 
nental Congrefs, held in the city of Philadel- 
phia, on the firth day of September, 1774, 
avowing our allegiance to his Majefty, our af- 
fection and regard for our fellow-fubjects in 
Great-Britain and elfewhere, affc<fted with the 



The foregoing Affociation being determined 
wipon by the Congress, was ordered to be iub- 
fcribed by the feveral Members thereor ; and 
thereupon we have hereunto fee our reflective 
iames accordingly. 

■ In Congrefs. Philadelphia, Oftoher 20, 1774. 









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20 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

True to the traditions and instincts of their race, they de- 
cided to rest their case upon historic rather than natural 
rights. They adopted a Declaration of Rights, an address 
to the people of Great Britain drawn by Jay, and an ad- 
dress to the King by John Dickinson. Both Jay and Dick- 
inson were moderate men, and the tone of the addresses 
was fair and conciliatory. On the motion of the dangerous 




JOHN DICKINSON, OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
From a painting by C. W. PeaU, ijQf. 



John Adams, they conceded the right of the mother- 
country to regulate their external trade, while at the same 
time they firmly denied the right to tax them without their 
consent, or to change their form of government. The 
case was argued with great force and ability. It appeared 
when all was done and the arguments published to the world, 
that these obscure colonial persons, whose names were un- 
known in the courts of Europe, had produced some remark- 
able state papers. "When your lordships," said Chatham, 



THE FIRST STEP 21 

"look at the papers transmitted us from America, when 
you consider their decency, firmness, and wisdom, you can- 
not but respect their cause and wish to make it your own. 
For myself, I must avow that in all my reading — and I 
have read Thucydides, and have studied and admired the 
master states of the world — for solidity of reason, force of 
sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion under a complication 
of difficult circumstances, no body of men can stand in 
preference to the general Congress at Philadelphia. The 
histories of Greece and Rome give us nothing equal to it, 
and all attempts to impose servitude on such a mighty 
continental nation must be in vain. We shall be forced 
ultimately to retract ; let us retract when we can ; not 
when we must." Pregnant words! The man who had led 
England to the greatest heights of glory detected a deep 
meaning in this little American Congress at Philadelphia. 
He saw that they had left the door wide open to a settle- 
ment and adjustment of all difficulties, that they wished 
to avert and not gain independence, that their cause was 
strong and the conquest of a continent impossible, and so 
he pleaded with England to look and learn. But Chat- 
ham had the eye of a great statesman, while the King and 
ministry were dull and blind. He spoke in vain ; he read 
the writing on the wall to deaf ears. The rulers of Eng- 
land neither saw the open door of reconciliation nor com- 
prehended the dangers which lurked behind. They paid 
no heed to arguments and pleas ; they felt only irritation 
at the measures which went with the words of the addresses. 
For Congress had not only spoken but acted. Before 
they adjourned on October 26th, they had passed a resolve 
against the slave-trade ; they had signed agreements to 
neither import nor export, exempting rice alone from the 



22 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

prohibition of trade with England ; they appointed a sec- 
ond Congress, and they voted to sustain Massachusetts, 

where the conflict had begun and was now fast culminat- 
ing, in her resistance to England. Not at all palatable 
this last vote to an honest gentleman of German parentage 
who was trying to be a king. It is to be feared that it had 
more effect on the royal mind than all the loyal addresses 
ever penned. George did not like people who favored re- 
sistance of any kind to what he wanted, and his ministers 
were engaged in sharing his likes and dislikes at that period 
for personal reasons very obvious to themselves. Highly 
offensive too was the proposition to have another Con- 
gress, inasmuch as the very existence of a Continental 
Congress meant union, and the ministry relied on disunion 
among the colonies for success. Arranging for a second 
Congress looked unpleasantly like a determination to 
persist, and as if these men were so satisfied of the 
goodness of their cause that they were bent on having 
what they wanted, even at some little cost. In that pur- 
ple unfortunately, thev were somewhat like the King 
himself. Yet to all men now. and to many intelligent 
men then, it seemed a pity to lose these great colonies, so 
anxious to remain loyal and to continue part of the British 
Empire, merely for the sake of taxing them against their 
will. All England had heard Chatham, and all England 
knew from him what this Congress meant. After he had 
spoken no one could plead ignorance. It only remained 
t'> see what England's rulers would do, and it soon became 
clear that England's rulers would do nothing except persist 
in their policy of force. Meantime the Congress dispersed 
and the members scattered to their homes to wait upon 
events. Thev had not long to wait, for they had begun the 



THE FIRST STEP 23 

American Revolution, loyal, peaceful, and anxious for 
reconciliation as they were. 

The English ministry it is certain did not comprehend 
at all what this Congress meant. They were engaged in 
the congenial task of undertaking to rule a continental 
empire as if it were a village. This method was well 
adapted to their own mental calibre, but was not suited 
to the merciless realities of the case. Therefore they re- 
garded the Congress as merely an audacious performance 
which was to be frowned upon, punished, and put down. 
The members of the Congress themselves took a much 
graver and juster view of what had happened. They 
realized that the mere fact of a Congress was itself of 
great moment, that it meant union, and that union was 
the first step toward an American nation which could come 
only from the breaking down of local barriers and the 
fusion of all the colonies for a common purpose. They 
were against independence, and yet they saw, what the 
King and his ministers could not understand, that it was 
a very near possibility if the existing situation was con- 
tinued. But it is also clear that they failed to see be- 
hind the possibility of independence the deeper signifi- 
cance of the work in which they were engaged. This 
was only natural, for they were properly absorbed in the 
practical and pressing questions with which they were 
called to deal. They could not be expected to grasp and 
formulate the fact that they were beginning the battle of 
the people everywhere to secure control of their own 
governments for which they paid and fought. Yet the 
doctrine had been laid down for them twelve years before. 
In 1762 James Otis, with one of those flashes of deep in- 
sijjfht which made him one of the most remarkable of all 



24 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

the men who led the way to revolution, had declared in a 
pamphlet that " Kings were made for the good of the 
people, and not the people for them." This was one of 
the propositions on which he rested his argument. For- 
gotten in the passage of time, and lost in the hurly-burly 
of events, here was a declaration which went far beyond 
any question of colonial rights or even of American in- 
dependence. Flere was a doctrine subversive of all exist- 
ing systems in the eighteenth century, and as applicable 
to Europe as to America. Now in 1774 a Congress 
had met and had acted unconsciously, but none the less 
efficient lv, upon Otis's proposition. For, stripped of all 
disguises and all temporary questions, this was what the 
Congress meant: that the people of America did not pro- 
pose to have Great Britain govern them, except as they 
{(leased, and that they intended to control their own gov- 
ernments and govern themselves. Congress had taken 
the first step along this new road. They could still turn 
back. The English ministry had still time to yield. But 
the irrevocable decision was to be made elsewhere, not 
in London nor in Philadelphia, not among ministers or 
members of Congress, but by certain plain men with arms 
in their hands, far away to the North, whose action would 
put it beyond the power of Congress to retreat, even if 
they had desired to do so. 



CHAPTER II 

THE FIRST BLOW 

IN Philadelphia, then, Congress took the first step in 
the Revolution, and set forth, in firm and able fashion, 
the arguments on which they rested their case and by 
which they still hoped to convince the reason and appeal 
to the affection of the English people and the English 
King. They were far from convinced that they would 
not succeed in securing a change of the British policy 
which they were resolved to resist, as they had already 
done in the case of the Stamp Act, ten years before. 
They could not even yet believe that the series of meas- 
ures directed against Boston and Massachusetts showed 
a settled determination on the part of the rulers of Eng- 
land to make them subject to an irresponsible government, 
which they never had endured and to which they never 
would submit. 

When Congress adjourned, on October 26th, much 
had been done, but the question was not to be settled in 
the field of debate. The dread appeal from Parliaments 
and Ministries and Congresses was to be taken elsewhere, 
taken under the pressure of inexorable circumstances by 
the people themselves. Among those men whose an- 
cestors had followed Pym and Hampden and Cromwell 
when they crushed crown and church in one common 

25 



26 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

ruin ; whose forefathers, a hundred years before, defying 
Charles II., had sent his commissioners, beaten and help- 
less, home, and later, had imprisoned and banished James 
II. 's governor, this new resistance to England first took 
on form and substance. There, in Massachusetts, that 
resistance had grown ami culminated since the days of the 
Stamp Act. In that colony there was a powerful clergy 
determined to prevent the overthrow of the Puritan 
churches and the setting up of the Church of England. 
In the streets of Boston there had been rioting and blood- 
shed, and Americans had been killed by the lire of British 
troops. On that devoted town had fallen the punishment 
of an angry ministry, and her closed harbor told the story 
of a struggle which had already passed from words to deeds. 
There feeling was tense and strained, arguments were 
worn out, an independent provincial government was fac- 
ing that of the King, and popular leaders were in danger 
of arrest and death. Such a situation could not last long. 
The only question was, when and where the break would 
come. When would the power of England make a move 
which would cause the democracy of America to strike at 
it with the armed hand ? That once done, all would be 
done. Congress would then cease to argue and begin to 
govern, and the sword would decide whether the old 
forces or the new were to rule in America. 

Looking at the situation now it is clear enough that 
the break was destined to come from some attempt by the 
British authorities in Massachusetts to stop military prep- 
arations on the part of the colonists by seizing their 
stores and munitions of war, or by arresting their leaders. 
That such attempts on the part of the British were reason- 
able enough, provided that they both expected and de- 



THE FIRST BLOW 



27 



sired hostilities, no one can deny. If one wishes to ex- 
plode a powder-magazine, it is sensible to fire the train 
which leads to it. But if one does not desire to explode 




CONCORD BRIDGE A T THE PRESENT TIME. 

gunpowder, it is prudent not to throw lighted matches 
about in its immediate neighborhood. The British acted 
on the superficial aspect of the case, without considering 
ultimate possibilities and results. They kept on lighting 



28 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

matches to see whether the explosive substances under 
their charge were all right, and finally they dropped one in 
the magazine. Poor Gage and the rest of the English 
commanders in Massachusetts are not to he much blamed 
for what they did. They were a set of commonplace, 
mediocre men, without imagination and without knowl- 
edge, suddenly called upon to deal with what they thought 
was a little case of rather obstinate disorder and bad tem- 
per in a small colony, but which was really a great force 
just stirring into life, and destined to shake continents and 
empires before its course was stayed. Small wonder, then, 
that they dealt with a great problem in a little wrong- 
headed conventional way, and reached the results which 
are to be expected when men trifle with world-forces in 
that careless and stupid fashion. 

Thus Gage, even before Congress had assembled, sent 
over to Quarry Hill, near Boston, and seized cannons and 
stores. Thereupon armed crowds in Cambridge next day, 
tumult and disorder in the streets, the Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor, Oliver, forced to resign, and bloodshed prevented 
only by Joseph Warren, summoned in haste from Boston. 
Reported in Philadelphia, this affair took on the form of 
fighting and bloodshed near Boston, and the chaplain of 
Congress read from the Psalm: "Lord, how long wilt 
thou look on? Stir up thyself, and awake to my judg- 
ment, even unto my cause, my God and my Lord." 
Worth considering, this little incident, if there had been 
men able to do so in England at that moment. To those 
who had attentive ears and minds there was an echo there 
of the words of the great Puritan captain at Dunbar, 
-peaking in a way very memorable to the world of Eng- 
land. When men of English blood side by side with the 



THE FIRST BLOW 29 

children of the Huguenots and the sons of Scotch Cov- 
enanters and of the men of Londonderry begin to pray 
after that fashion, a dangerous spirit is abroad and one 
not lightly to be tampered with. 

Gage, knowing and caring nothing about prayers or 
anything else at Philadelphia, but annoyed by the out- 
break at Cambridge, felt in his dull way that something 
was wrong, and began to fortify Boston Neck. Some- 
how he could not get his work done very well. He had 
his barges sunk, his straw fired, his wagons mired, all in 
unexplained ways, and the works were not finished until 
November. At the same time his movements excited 
alarm and suspicion, not only in Boston, but elsewhere. 
In December the cannon were taken away at Newport by 
the Governor, so that the British could not get them. A 
little later the people at Portsmouth, N. IL, entered the 
fort and carried off, for their own use and behoof, the guns 
and the powder. 

The trouble was spreading ominously and evidently. 
Massachusetts for her part knew now that the continent 
was behind her, and the Provincial Congress in February 
declared their wish for peace and union, but advised prep- 
aration for war. How much effect the wishes had can- 
not be said, but the advice at least was eagerly followed. 
The people of Salem, in pursuance of the injunction, be- 
gan to mount cannon, and Gage thereupon sent three 
hundred men to stop the work. The town was warned in 
time. A great crowd met the soldiers at the bridge, and 
Colonel Leslie, shrinking from the decisive step, with- 
drew. It was a narrow escape. Soldiers and people had 
come face to face and had looked in each others' eyes. 
The conflict was getting very close. 



3Q 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



.- 



■^4$* 



.f m 




<i^i. 



m& ■■ 



. 'in* it 









. ■ •' ) ■ '■■ I 




\ 



THE OLD BUCKMAN TAVERN, BUILT 1600. 

Stands on the edge of Lexington Common. It was here that the Minute Men gathered after the alarm on the 

night pefcr e the fight. 



Again, at the end of March, Gage sent out Lord 
Percv with some light troops, who marched as far as 
Jamaica Plain and returned. The Minute Men gathered, 
hut once more the opposing forces stared in each others' 
faces and parted as they met. The Provincial Congress 
adjourned on April 151I1. Still the peace was unbroken, 
but the storm was near at hand. British officers had been 
scouring the country for information, and they knew that 
John Hancock and Samuel Adams had taken refuge in 



THE FIRST BLOW 



3i 



Lexington, and that munitions of war were stored at Con- 
cord, a few miles farther on. It was thereupon determined 
to seize both the rebel leaders and the munitions at Con- 
cord. Other expeditions had failed. This one must suc- 
ceed. All should be done in secret, and the advantage of a 
surprise was to be increased by the presence of an over- 
whelming force. The British commander managed well, 
but not quite well enough. It is difficult to keep military 
secrets in the midst of an attentive people, and by the 
people themselves the discovery was made. Paul Revere 
had some thirty mechanics organ- 
ized to watch and report the move- 
ments of the British, and these men 
now became convinced that an ex- 
pedition was on foot, and one of a 
serious character. The movement 
of troops and boats told the story 
to watchers, with keen eyes and 
ears, who believed that 
their rights were in 
peril. They were soon 
satisfied that the expe- 
dition was intended for 
Lexington a n d Con- 
cord, to seize the lead- 
ers and the stores ; and 
acting promptly 
on this belief 
they gave notice 
to their chiefs in 
Boston and de- 
termined to 







THE OLD NORTH-^ -■ 

1--"^ 

The S.gnal Lantern! of 

PAUL REVERE 

difplayea m the ftceple of this church 

April 18 1775 
warned the country of the march 

of the Bnhrti tioopj 1c, 
LEXiNGTON ind CONCORD. 









I 



32 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

thwart the enemy's plans by warning and rousing the 
Country. 

On April [8th, Warren sent William Dawes by land 
over the Neck to Roxbury and thence to Lexington to 
carry the news. Paul Revere arranged to have lantern 
signals shown in the belfry of the Old North Church, 
"one if by land, and two if by sea," and then went home, 
dressed himself for a night-ride, and taking a boat rowed 
over to Charlestown. It was a beautiful and quiet even- 
ing. As his boat slipped along he noted that the Somerset 
man-of-war was just winding with the tide, then at young 
flood. The moon was rising and shed its peaceful light 
upon the scene. Arrived at Charlestown, Revere secured 
a horse and waited. At eleven o'clock two lights gleamed 
from the belfry of the Old North Church, showing that 
the troops were going by water to Cambridge, and Re- 
vere mounted and rode away. He crossed Charlestown 
Neck, and as he passed the spot where a felon had been 
hung in chains, he saw two British officers waiting to stop 
him. One tried to head him, one sought to take him. 
But Revere knew his country. lie turned back sharply 
and then swung into the Medford road. I lis pursuer fell 
into a clay-pit and Revere rode swiftly to Medford, 
warned the captain of the Minute Men, and then galloped 
on, rousing every house and farm and village until he 
reached Lexington. There he awakened Adams and 
Hancock and was joined by Dawes and by Dr. Samuel 
Prescott. After a brief delay the three started to alarm 
the country between Lexington and Concord. They had 
ridden but a short distance when they were met by four 
British officers who barred the road. Prescott jumped his 
horse over a stone wall and escaped, carrying the alarm t<> 



THE FIRST BLOW 



33 




PAUL REVERE ROUSING THE INHABITANTS ALONG THE ROAD TO 
LEXINGTON. 



Concord. Revere rode toward a wood, when six more 
British officers appeared and he was made a prisoner and 
forced to return with Dawes and his captors to Lexington. 
There he was released, and as soon as he was free tie per- 



34 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 




suaded Adams and Hancock to go to Woburn, and after 
accompanying them returned to get their papers and 
effects. As he was engaged in this work he heard firing, 

and the sound told him that 
he had not ridden through 
the night in vain. A mem- 
orable ride in truth it was, 
one which spread alarm at the 
time and has been much suns: 
and celebrated since. Perhaps 
the fact which is best worth re- 
membering is that it was well 
done and answered its purpose. 
Under the April moonlight, 
Revere and Dawes and Pres- 
cott galloped hard and fast. 
Brave men, and efficient, they 
defeated the British plans and 
warned the country. The new day, just dawning when 
Revere heard the firing, was to show the value of their 
work. 

They had had, indeed, but little time to spare. As 
Revere was mounting his horse, Lieutenant-Colonel Smith, 
with eight hundred men, was crossing the Back Bay from 
Boston to Lechmere Point. At two o'clock he had his 
men landed, and they set forth at once, silently and rapidly, 
toward Lexington. So far all had gone well, but as they 
marched there broke upon their ears the sound of guns and 
bells, some near, some distant, but in every one the note 
oi alarm. The country was not asleep, then? On the 
contrary, it seemed to be wide awake. All about among 
the hills and meadows armed men were gathered at the 



PAUL REVERE, BY ST. MEMIN, 
1804. 



THE FIRST BLOW 



35 



little meeting-houses, and falling into line prepared for 
action. Here, in the tolling of the bells and the sound 
of signal-guns, was much meaning and cause for anxiety. 
Colonel Smith became worried, sent back to Boston for 
reinforcements to beat these farmers at whom he and his 
friends had scoffed so often, and ordered Major Pitcairn 
forward to Lexington with six light companies, still hopeful 
of surprise. Major Pitcairn picks up everybody he meets, 
to prevent alarm being given ; but one Bowman, an active 
and diligent person, as it would seem, and a brave soldier of 
the last French war, eludes him, rides hotly to Lexington, and 
warns the Minute Men, who have been waiting since two 
o'clock, and had almost come to believe that the British 
were not advancing at all. So when Major Pitcairn got 
to Lexington Green, about half past four, thanks to Bow- 
man's warning, there were some sixty or seventy men as- 
sembled to meet him. " Disperse, ye rebels ; disperse ! " 
cried Major Pitcairn, and rode toward them. There was 
much discussion then, and there has been much more since, 
as to who tired first. It matters not. It is certain that 
the British poured in 
a volley and followed 
it up with others. The 
Minute Men, not yet 
realizing that the de- 
cisive m o m e n t had MAJOR f 
come, hesitated, some r^« 
standing their ground, 
some scattering. They 
fired a few straggling shots, wounded a couple of British 
soldiers, and drew off. Eight Americans were killed and 
ten wounded. One of the eight had carried the standard 




terward were presented to Israel Putnam, who carried the 

throughout the war. Later they were presented to the Cary 
Library, and are now :u tht Town Hall a! Lexington. 



36 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



when American troops captured Louisburg, and thus re- 
deemed for England an otherwise ineffective war. One- 
was wounded and bayoneted afterward. One dragged 
himself to the door of his house and died on the threshold 
at his wife's feet. What matters it who fired first? The 
first blow had been struck, the first blood shed. The peo- 




Emm 



HARRINGTON HOUSE, LEXINGTON. 

In the foreground, on the Common, is a large stone marking the line of the Minute Men. Jonathan Harringt m, 
after being shot, dragged himself to hii door Hep and there died a: las wife's feet. 

pie, in obedience to the orders of a Provincial Congress, 
had faced the soldiers of England in arms. They had 
been fired upon and had returned the lire. It was not a 
battle, hardly a skirmish. Hut it said to all the world that 
a people intended to govern themselves, and would die 
sooner than yield ; a very pregnant fact, speaking much 
louder than words and charged with many meanings. A 
wholly new thing this was indeed, to have people ready to 



THE FIRST BLOW 



39 



die in battle for their rights, when a large part of the rulers 
of the civilized world did not recognize that they had any 
rights either to die or live for. A great example to be 
deeply considered, and destined to bear much fruit, was 
given by those brave men who died on Lexington Green 
in the fair dawn of that April morning. 

The British formed after the encounter, fired a vollev, 




GENERAL VIEW OF LEXINGTON COMMON A T THE PRESENT TIME. 



and gave three cheers for their victory. If a victory is to 
be judged by what it costs, it must be admitted that this 
one was but modestly celebrated, for it is safe to say that 
it was the most expensive victory ever won by England. 
From another point of view i~he celebration was premature, 
for the day was not over and there was still much to be 
done. 

The English soldiers had killed some Massachusetts 
farmers, but they had missed the rebel leaders at Lexing- 



40 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



ton. No time was to be lost if they were to carry out the 
second part of their mission and destroy the stores at 
Concord. Thither, therefore, they marched as rapidly as 
possible. Colonel Smith, a little disturbed by the fighting 
on Lexington Green, and still more anxious as to the 
future, not liking the looks of things, perhaps, was wonder- 




LORD PERCY. 

XVhosi timely arrival relieved the British troops under Colonel Smith 

From ,i print lent by //'. C. Crane. 

ing, no doubt, whether they were sending from Boston the 
aid he had sent for. I lis messenger, if he could have 
known it, was safely in Boston at that moment, and Cage 
gave heed at once to the appeal. There were blunders and 
delays, but, nevertheless, between eight and nine o'clock, 
Lord Percy, with about a thousand men — soldiers and 
marines— was marching out of Boston. A boy named 
Harrison Gray Otis, destined to much distinction in later 



THE FIRST BLOW 41 

years, was delayed in getting- to school that morning by 
the troops marching along Tremont Street. He reached 
the Latin School in time, however, to hear Lovell, the 
schoolmaster, say, " War's begun. School's done. Dimit- 
tite libros" and then rush out with his fellows to see the 
red-coats disappear in the direction of the Neck. Wat- 
was in the air. No news of Lexington had yet come, but 
it was a popular revolution which was beginning, and the 
popular instinct knew that the hour had struck. When 
the British reached Roxburv, Williams, the schoolmaster 
there, like Lovell in Boston, dismissed the school, locked 
the door, joined the minute-men, and served for seven years 
in the American army before returning to his home. As 
Lord Percy rode along the band played " Yankee Doodle," 
and a boy shouted and laughed at him from the side of the 
road. Lord Percy asked him what he meant, and the boy 
replied, " To think how you will dance by and by to 'Chevy 
Chase.' "* The contemporary witness who chronicles this 
little incident for us says the repartee stuck to Lord Percy 
all day. One cannot help wondering whether it made 
certain lines like these run in his head : 

" The child that is unborn shall rue 
The hunting of that clay." 

Again it is the voice of the people, of the schoolmaster 
and his scholars, of the boys in the street. Very trivial 
seemingly all this at the moment, yet with much real mean- 
ins: for those who were ensrasred in brin^in^ on the con- 

'There is no doubt that the band played " Vankee Doodle " in derision, hut the 
boy's answer is so very apt, and apt for Lord Percy above all other men on earth, that 
it seems as if it must be an invention. Vet we have it from Or. Gordon, a contem- 
porary on the spot, writing down all incidents at the moment, and he was a pains- 
taking, intelligent chronicler. 



42 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



flict, if they had been able to interpret it. It certainly was 
not heeded or thought about at all by Lord Percy as he 
marched on through Roxbury, whence, swinging to the 
right across the meadows and marshlands, he passed over 
the bridge to Cambridge, and thence away to Lexington, 
along the route already taken by the earlier detachment. 







S##8F— - s \ ...... 

:; . . a --■ r? \i A 









BARRETT HOUSE, NEAR CONCORD. 

Where military stores were secreted, and also one of the objective points of the expedition under Colonel Smith. 



Meantime, while Lord Percy was setting out, Smith 
and his men got to Concord, only to find cannon and 
stores, for the most part, gone. A few guns to be 
spiked, the court-house to be set on fire, some barrels of 
flour to be broken open, made up the sum of what they 
were able to do. For this work small detachments were 
sent out. One went to the North Bridge, had in fact 
crossed over, when they perceived, on the other side, the 



THE FIRST BLOW 



45 




Minute Men who had assembled to guard the town, and 
who now advanced, trailing' their guns. The British with- 
drew to their own side of the bridge and 
began to take it up. Major Buttrick re- 
monstrated against this proceeding, and 
ordered his men to quicken their step. 
As they approached the British tired, inef- 
fectually at first, then with closer aim, and 
two or three Americans fell. Buttrick 
sprang forward, shouting, "Fire, fellow- 
soldiers ! For God's sake lire ! " The 
moment had come ; the Americans fired, 
not straggling shots now, as in the sur- 
prise at Lexington, but intending serious 
business. Two soldiers were killed and 
several wounded. The Americans poured 
over the bridge, the British retreated, and 
the Concord fight was over. The shot, 
"heard round the world," had been fired 
to good purpose, both there and elsewhere. It echoed far, 
that shot of the Concord and Acton farmers, not because 
it was in defence of the principle that there must be no tax- 
ation without representation, not even because it portended 
the independence of America, but because it meant, as those 
fired on Lexington Common meant, that a people had aris- 
en, determined to fight for the right to govern themselves. 
It meant that the instinct which pressed the triggers at the 
North Bridge was a popular instinct, that the great demo- 
cratic movement had begun, that a new power had arisen 
in the world, destined, for weal or woe, to change in the 
coming century the forms of government and of society 
throughout the civilized nations of the West. 



F I. A G CARRIED 
BY THE BED- 
F O R D M ILL 
IT A COM PA XV 
AT CONCORD 
BRIDGE. 

" It wai originally de- 
signed in England 'n 
•jo for the three county 
troops of Middlesex, n>;,t be- 
came one of the accepted stand- 
ards Of the organized Militia 

and as at, h it 
wai used by the Bedford Com- 
pany." 

WILLIAM S. APP1 ETON, 
Mass. Hist. Society. 



46 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 






m 







^«s 



4' 



filllf*^ 











WRIGHT TAVERN, CONCORD, AT THE PRESENT TIME. 
Built i~4j. Here Major Pitcairn stopped to refresh himself. 



After the British retreated from the bridge, the Minute 
Men, not quite realizing even yet what had happened, drew 
hack to the hills and waited. Colonel Smith wasted some 
two hours in concentrating and resting his men, and about 
noon started back for Lexington. At first he threw out 
light detachments to keep his Hanks clear, but by the time 
he reached Merriam's Corner they were forced by the 
nature of the ground back to the main line. Then the 
fighting began in earnest. From all the surrounding towns 
the Minute Men were pouring in. There was a brush with 
a flanking party just as Merriam's Corner was reached. 
Then as the British passed along the road, in most parts 
thickly wooded, from every copse and thicket and stone 
wall the shots would ring out with deadly effect, for the 
Americans were all trained to the use of the rifle. A de- 



THE FIRST BLOW 47 

tachment would be thrown out to clear the flank, the 
enemy would scatter, and the detached soldiers entangled 
in the brush would be picked off more easily even than in 
the road itself. The Americans seemed "to drop from the 
clouds," as one British officer wrote, and their fire came 



It , , 



y.'-t 



/ n J */ /~- ~ , ~ , - .//" Z 

£ . v> . & a / was 1 - Aa, 6> US 7^ ♦• ' // ■,■ ■/*# ** 0* £eA 



/ 



I 






5 ~"*rf&~<? c/5u~ 






' -■,;//; on £*-<- U - 


















+>HXC 



■ &4 

r 'Int. , r ;/&"*' ( M^,^ 



'<?{ ■ 



f,,.,.i. 



RECEIPT SIGNED BY THE MINUTE MEN OF IPSWICH, MASS., WHO 
MARCHED ON THE ALARM, APRIL iq, i-- 5 . 

The original of this document is in the Emmet Collection in the Lenox Library. 



- C&»*~e*- 



4 8 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



upon the enemy on both Hanks, from the rear, and even in 
front. These Minute Men, in fact, were now waging the 







THE RETREAT FROM CONCORD. 



kind of warfare they perfectly understood. Many of them 
had served in the old French war; they had fought the 
Indians and had learned from their savage foe how to slip 



THE FIRST BLOW 49 

from tree to tree, to advance under cover, fire, and retreat, 
each man acting for himself, undisturbed by the going or 
coming of his fellows, and free from any danger of panic. 
In a word, they were practising backwoods fighting with 
deadly effect on regular troops who could neither under- 
stand nor meet it. So the time wore on. The shots from 
the flanks came faster and faster, officers and men were 
dropping beneath the deadly fire, the ranks were breaking, 
and only the desperate efforts of the officers prevented a 
panic like that in which Braddock's army had gone down. 
On through the pleasant country in the bright spring sun- 
shine they went, disorder increasing, men falling, ammuni- 
tion giving out — a fine body of regular and disciplined 
troops going pitifully and visibly to wreck. The Lexington 
company, out again in force, avenged the losses of the 
morning, and as the British thus beset struggled on, they 
came again to the famous common where they had cele- 
brated their sunrise victory. No thought of victories now, 
only of safety ; and here, at least, was relief. Here was 
Lord Percy with his fresh brigade, and into the square 
which he had formed Smith's hunted men rushed wildly 
and flung themselves down on the ground, utterly ex- 
hausted, with their tongues out, says the British historian 
Stedman, "like dogs after a chase." Here, moreover, the 
Americans were at a disadvantage, for it was an open space, 
and Lord Percy's cannon soon cleared the ground, while 
his men set fire to the houses. The Americans drew off 
and waited. They had only to be patient, for they knew 
their time would come again. 

Lord Percy, although he had now nearly eighteen hun- 
dred men, made no attempt to attack the Americans, who 
were waiting quietly just out of range. After a brief 



50 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



period of rest he gave the word and the troops took up 
their march for Boston. As soon as they started the 
Americans closed in, and the fighting began again in front, 
behind, and on both flanks. More Minute Men had come 
up, more were constantly arriving. There would be heavy 
firing and sharp lighting, then the cannon would be swung 
round, then a lull would follow, then more firing and fight- 
ing, until the cannon lost their terror, while the firing grew 
constantly heavier and the fighting sharper. There was no 
time to go round by Cambridge, as they had come in the 
morning. Lord Percy made straight for Charlestown, the 
nearest point of safety, and the worst attack fell on him 
just before he reached his haven and got his columns, now 




.*• fa® 



*£. 



GRAVE OF BRITISH SOLDIERS, NEAR THE BRIDGE AT CONCi V/». 

broken and running, under the guns of the men-of-war. At 
last the day was done — Lexington and Concord had had 
their battles and taken their place in history. 

When the story of April 19, 1775, is told, we are apt 



THE FIRST BLOW 



5i 




to think only of the firing at sun- 
rise on Lexington Green, and of 
the slight skirmish at the old 
North Bridge in Concord. We 
are prone to forget that apart 
from these two dramatic points 
there was a good deal of severe 
fighting during that memorable 
day. A column of regular Eng- 
lish troops, at first 800, then 1,800 
strong, had marched out to Con- 
cord and Lexington, and back to 
Boston, and had met some hun- 
dreds of irregular soldiers, at best 
militia. They retreated before 
these Minute Men for miles, and 
reached Boston in a state not far 
removed from rout and panic. 
The running fight had not been 
child's play by any means. The 
Americans lost 88 men killed 
and wounded ; the British 247, 
besides 26 missing or prisoners. 
These were serious figures. Evi- 
dently the British officers, who in the morning of that 
day thought the Americans had neither courage nor res- 
olution, would have to revise their opinions, unless they 
were ready for further disasters. But more important 
than the views of British officers, somewhat tired and an- 
noyed that evening in Boston, was the fact that the 
American fighting had been done by the people themselves, 
on the spur of the moment. It was every man for himself. 



THE MINUTE MAN AT CON- 
CORD BRIDGE. 



52 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

Heath and Warren had come out and rallied the Minute 
Men into more compact bodies here and there, but it was 
the Minute Men's light. A common instinct moved those 
Middlesex yeomen, and it appeared that they were ready on 
their own account to take up arms and fight in their back- 
woods fashion hard and effectively. Here was a fact de- 
serving much pondering from kings and ministers, who, it 
is to be feared, gave it but little heed, and certainly failed 
either to understand it or to fathom its deep meaning for 
them, their empire, and, in certain wider aspects, for man- 
kind. 



CHAPTER III 

THE SECOND CONGRESS 

THE Massachusetts farmers had precipitated the cri- 
sis. They had fought the British troops and now 
held them besieged in Boston. Connecticut and 
New Hampshire had sustained them with men sent to share 
in the perils of the time and help to lay siege to the British 
army. Then came the anxious question as to how the rest 
of the country would look upon what had been done. 
Hitherto the other colonies had sympathized with the 
Eastern people strongly, and thus far had cordially sup- 
ported them ; but there was a powerful party, especially in 
the Middle States, who disliked the actions and suspected 
the intentions of the New Englanders, and who were 
strongly averse to independence or to any breach with the 
mother-country. How would these other colonies act 
now ? Would they still stand by Massachusetts, or would 
they recoil in alarm when blood had been shed and posi- 
tive action one way or the other was no longer to be 
avoided ? With these questions upon them the Provincial 
Congress of Massachusetts drew up an official account of 
the events of April 19th and sent one copy to England, 
where the news caused stocks to fall and startled Lord 
North, who had intelligence and perceptions denied to his 
master, while another was despatched by express through 

53 



54 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

all the other colonies to South Carolina. A momentous 
deed had been done, and the anxiety of the doers thereof is 
shown by the manner in which this official narrative was 
hurried away to the southward. The Massachusetts dele- 
gates who set out for Philadelphia within a fortnight after 
the Lexington and Concord fia;ht may well have been 
beset with doubts and fears as to the reception which 
awaited them in Congress. 

Samuel and John Adams again led the delegation, but 
to their little company was now added a man destined to 
become one of the best-known names of the Revolution, 
although as an efficient and effective actor his part was 
small. Rich, well-born, and generous in expense, John 
Hancock, almost alone among the men of wealth, family, 
and office who then formed the aristocracy of Boston, had 
espoused openly the side of opposition to Great Britain. 
Samuel Adams, shrewd judge and manager of men, cul- 
tivated his friendship, Mattered his vanity, and employed 
him to excellent purpose. Here he had him now in his 
company as a Member of Congress, and we shall see pres- 
ently how he used him there. So the Massachusetts 
delegates, thus reinforced, journeyed on together through 
Connecticut. There they already knew that all was safe 
and sympathetic. It was when they drew near the Hud- 
son that the real anxiety began. But it came only to be 
dispelled, for as they approached New York they were met 
by a company of grenadiers, by a regiment of militia, by 
carriages, and by hundreds of men on foot. As they 
passed along into the town the roads and streets were lined 
with people who cheered them loudly, while the bells of 
the churches rang out a joyful peal of welcome. They 
were heroes, it appeared, not culprits. The people were 




JOHN HANCOCK. 
Engraved/rom the portrait Minted by Cofley in U74- No-w in possession oj the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. 



THE SECOND CONGRESS 57 

with them here as in New England, and when they left 
the city they were escorted again by the militia, and again 
the crowds cheered them on their way. So it was all 
through New Jersey to Philadelphia. Honors and rejoic- 
ings met them everywhere. The people of the sister colo- 
nies stood firmly by Massachusetts in striking the first 
blow. 

The second Congress met on May ioth. The leaders 
of the first were again there — Washington, Henry, Lee, 
Jay, and the two Adamses. With them, too, were some 
new men already distinguished or destined to win reputa- 
tion. Chief among these new members was Benjamin 
Franklin, the most famous American then living, known 
throughout Europe for his scientific discoveries ; known in 
England besides as the fearless champion of the colonies ; 
great in science and in statecraft ; a statesman and diplo- 
matist ; a man of letters and a popular writer, whose wit 
and wisdom were read in many tongues ; just returned 
from London, and the wisest and most influential man in 
the Congress. It is worth while to pause a moment to look 
at Franklin, standing forth now as a leader of revolution, 
for he was one of the great men of the century. He was 
then in his seventieth year, but vigorous and keen as ever 
in mind and body. He could have done more than any 
other one man to prevent colonial revolt, for he was emi- 
nently conservative and peace-loving, as well as truly loyal 
to the mother-country. The ministry, who would have 
listened to him and been guided by him, would have held 
America, and fastened it tighter than ever to the Empire. 
Instead of this, official England set her Solicitor-General 
to vilify and abuse him in the presence of the Privy Coun- 
cil and before the English people. Franklin listened in 



58 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

silence to the invective then heaped upon him, and the 
most powerful friend to peace, union, and conciliation was 
lost to England. Now he had come back to guide his 
countrymen among the dangers which beset them, and to 
win allies for them from beyond seas. In the man of 
science, letters, and philanthropy we are apt to lose sight 
of the bold statesman and great diplomatist. We always 
think of that familiar face with the tine forehead and the 
expression of universal benevolence. But there was another 
aspect. Look at the picture of Franklin where the fur cap 
is pulled down over his head. The noble brow is hidden, 
the pervading air of soft and gentle benevolence has faded, 
and a face of strength and power, of vigorous will and of 
an astuteness rarely equalled, looks out at us and fixes our 
attention. This versatile genius, in whom the sternness of 
the Puritan mingled with the scepticism and tolerance of 
the eighteenth-century philosopher, was not one to be 
lightly reviled and abused. It would have been well for 
Wedderburn, who. at his death, in the words of his affec- 
tionate sovereign, " left no greater knave behind him," if 
he had not added to the list of ministerial blunders that of 
making an enemy of Franklin. All these incidents which 
had befallen him in London were as well known as Frank- 
lin's fame in science and his distinction in the public ser- 
vice, and we can easily imagine how he was looked up to 
in America, and how men turned to him when he appeared 
in Congress. He was the great figure at this second gath- 
ering, but not the only one among the new members who 
deserved remark. From Massachusetts came, as has been 
siid, John Hancock, and from New York George Clinton 
and Robert Livingston, who were to play conspicuous parts 
in the Revolution and in the earlv years of the new nation 



THE SECOND CONGRESS 59 

which sprang from it, while a little later Virginia sent 
Thomas Jefferson to fill a vacant place. 

Never indeed was the best ability of the country more 
needed, for events had moved fast in the six months which 
had elapsed since the first Congress adjourned. War had 
broken out, and this second Congress found itself facing 
realities of the sternest kind. Yet the members were 
merely delegates, chosen only to represent the views and 
wishes of the colonies in regard to their relations with 
Great Britain. Beyond this they had no authority. 
Many of them had been irregularly elected by popular 
meetings. Their instructions varied, but none empowered 
them to form a government. They had not a square foot 
of territory which they could control ; they had no execu- 
tive powers ; no money ; no authority to make laws, and 
no means to carry them out. And yet the great forces 
were moving, and they had to face facts which demanded 
a vigorous and efficient government. 

Even as they met on May 10th a British fortress had 
been seized bv the colonists, for Lexington and Concord 
had set in motion a force which, once started, could 
neither be stayed nor limited. The first military and polit- 
ical object of England when actual war came obviously 
would be to divide New England from the middle colonies 
by controlling the line of the Hudson River to the lakes 
lying on the borders of Vermont and New York. The 
key of the position was the fortress at Ticonderoga which 
commanded the lakes, and in this way the road from 
Canada to New York Harbor. Very early in the troubles 
the New England leaders saw this situation, and when the 
conflict broke they moved quickly. Adams and Hancock 
counselled with the Governor of Connecticut and sent 



6o 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



an express to Ethan Allen in the Green Mountains to 
prepare to seize the fort. Then some fifty men went for- 
ward from Connecticut and Massachusetts and met Ethan 
Allen at Bennington. An alarm was sent out, about a 
hundred hardy men from the mountains joined the de- 
tachment from the South, Allen was chosen leader, and 




THE RUINS OF TICONDEROGA, LOOKING NORTHWEST, SHOWING THE RE- 
MAINS OF THE BASTION AND BARRACKS. 



on May 8th they started. The night of May 9th they 
were near the fort, and waited for the day to come. When 
the first faint flush of light appeared, Allen asked every 
man who was willing to go with him to poise his gun. 
Every gun was raised. Allen gave the word and they 
marched to the entrance of the fort. The gate was shut, 
bin the wicket open. The sentry snapped his fuzee, and 
Allen, followed by his men, dashed in through the wicket, 




THE CAPTURE OF TICONDEROGA BY ETHAN ALLEX. 
.,,,„ ,,„, i, trl , resistance, and the sentries, after one or two shots, threw down their an 



THE SECOND CONGRESS 6s 

raised the Indian war-whoop and formed on the parade, 
covering the barracks on each side. There was but little 
resistance, and the sentries, after one or two shots, threw 
down their arms, while Allen strode forward toward the 
quarters of the commandant. As he reached the door, 
Delaplace appeared, undressed, and Allen demanded the 
surrender of the fort. " By what authority ? " asked Dela- 
place. " In the name of the great Jehovah and the Con- 
tinental Congress," answered Allen. No stranger military 
summons was ever made, with its queer mingling of Puri- 
tan phrase and legal form. But it served its purpose 
better than many an elaborate demand framed in the best 
style of Louis the Great, for it was perfectly successful. 
The fort which had cost England several campaigns, many 
lives, and some millions of pounds, fell into the hands of 
the Americans in ten minutes. The reason was plain. 
The Americans were quick-witted, knew the enormous 
value of the position, and acted at once. Thus by a sur- 
prise they succeeded ; but none the less real wisdom lay 
behind Allen's prompt and vigorous action. As a military 
exploit it was all simple enough : nerve and courage at the 
right moment, and the deed was done. But the foresight 
which planned and urged the deed to execution showed 
military and political sense of a high order. Nor was that 
all. Seth Warner seized Crown Point, and another party 
took possession of the harbor of Skenesboro. The road 
from Canada to New York was now in the hands of the 
Americans, a fact fruitful of consequences when a battle 
which has been set down as one of the decisive battles of 
the world was to be fought a few years later. Important, 
too, were the two hundred cannon taken in Ticonderoga 
and destined to play an essential part a few months later 



6 4 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



in driving the British from their first military foothold 
in America. Altogether a brave deed, this of Allen and 
his mountain men ; very punctually and thoroughly per- 
formed, and productive of abundant results, as is usually 
the case with efficient action, which, without criticism, 




fa ' 




A NEAR VIEW OF THE RUINS OF THE OFFICERS' 
Ql \ I R TEES . I T TICi WDEROGA . 



Ground Plan Barren ks 

and Officers' Quarters. The 



carpings, or doubts, drives straight on at 

entered , i 1 . i , • 1 

the goal to be attained. 
While Ethan Allen and his men were thus hurrying 
events forward in their own rough-and-ready fashion that 
pleasant May morning, the members of the second Con- 
gress were meeting in Philadelphia. They knew nothing 
of what was happening far to the north, or of how the 
men of the Green Mountains were forcing them on to 
measures and responsibilities from which they still shrank, 
and which they had not yet put into words. They would 



THE SECOND CONGRESS 65 

learn it all soon enough from messengers hurrying south- 
ward from Tieonderoga, but they already had ample food 
for thought without this addition. The King and his 
Ministers had rejected and flouted their appeals sent 
to England six months before, and had decided on 
fresh measures of coercion. Their friends in Parliament 
had been beaten. The farmers of Massachusetts had 
fought the King's troops, and now held those troops be- 
sieged in Boston with a rough, undisciplined army. Rec- 
ognition, reasonable settlement, mutual concessions, had 
drifted a good deal farther off than when they last met. 
If the situation had been grave in 1774, it was infinitely 
graver and more difficult now. How were they to deal 
with it, devoid as they were of proper powers for action 
and still anxious to remain part of the British Empire ? 
A very intricate question this, but they faced it man- 
fully. 

They began, as before, by electing Peyton Randolph 
President, and when shortly afterward lie was called home, 
they went from Virginia to Massachusetts for his succes- 
sor. The use of John Hancock now became apparent, 
and we can see why Samuel Adams had brought him 
from Boston. He had the wealth, the position, the man- 
ners which made him attractive to the delegates from the 
other colonies. He was free from the suspicion of being 
too radical and dangerous, which clung to both Samuel 
and John Adams, despite the fact of his association with 
them. He was dignified, courtly, well known. It was 
very important to Massachusetts, which had ventured so 
far in open rebellion, that Congress should stand by her. 
To have the President of the Congress, if Virginia, the 
other strongly resisting colony, did not furnish that 



66 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

officer, was an important step. In itself it carried sup- 
port and approbation, for John Hancock was a proscribed 
man, and Benjamin Harrison, as he escorted him to the 
chair, said they would show Great Britain how much they 
cared for her proscriptions. Samuel Adams could not 
have been elected President, John Hancock could be ; 
and accordingly, when Randolph withdrew, he was chosen. 
He was an excellent presiding officer and accustomed to 
be governed and guided by Adams. His election meant 
that the party of firm resistance to England, whose bul- 
warks were Virginia and Massachusetts, controlled the 
Congress, something much more essential to them now 
than six months before. Be it noted also that to fill Ran- 
dolph's place as delegate there shortly arrived a tall, 
rather awkward-looking young man, with reddish hair and 
a pleasant face and look. His name was Thomas Jeffer- 
son, and although he proved a silent member, he so won 
upon his associates that he was placed on important com- 
mittees, and a little later showed that if he would not 
speak in public, he could write words which the world 
would read and future generations repeat. Among the 
delegates who came late we must also remark one named 
Lyman Hall, from the parish of St. John's in Georgia, 
where there was a New England settlement. His arrival 
completed the tale of the American Colonies. The thir- 
teen in one way or another all had representation in the 
new Congress. The union of the colonies, which was so 
dangerous to British supremacy, was evidently growing 
more complete and perfect. 

The work of organization done, the Congress faced 
the situation, and solved the question of lack of authority 
by boldly assuming all necessary executive powers as 



THE SECOND CONGRESS 67 

events required. In committee of the whole they re- 
viewed the proceedings in Massachusetts, and then ensued 
a series of contradictions very characteristic of the law- 
abiding English people, and reminding one strongly of a 
time when the Long Parliament made war on the king in 
the king's name. These colonial Englishmen resolved 
that Great Britain had begun hostilities and at the same 
time protested their loyalty. They declared they were for 
peace, advised New York to allow the British troops to 
be landed from the Asia, and then voted to put the col- 
onies in a position of defence. Under the lead of John 
Dickinson, they agreed to petition the king again, and 
authorized addresses to the people of England, to the 
people of Ireland, and to their fellow-colonists of Canada 
and of Jamaica. When the news of Ticonderoga came, 
they decided not to invade Canada, and hesitated even 
about the wisdom of holding the forts they had taken. 
Then, pushed on bv events, they proceeded to exercise 
the highest sovereign powers by authorizing a small loan 
and organizing an army. On June 15th, John Adams 
moved that they adopt the army then at Boston, and, rep- 
resenting New England, declared that the head of that 
army should be their distinguished colleague from Vir- 
ginia, who thereupon left the room. The proposition 
prevailed, and two days later, on the motion of Mr. John- 
son of Maryland, carrying out the suggestion of John 
Adams, they formally chose George Washington to com- 
mand what was henceforth to be known as the Conti- 
nental Army, then engaged in besieging the British in 
Boston. It was a noble choice, one worth remembering, 
for they took the absolutely greatest and fittest man in 
America, a feat which is seldom performed, it being too 



68 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

often left to events to throw out the unfit selections made 
by men and put in their stead those to whom the places 
really belong. 

Washington himself, silently watching all that hap- 
pened with the keen insight which never was at fault, 
always free from illusions, and recognizing facts with a 
veracity of mind which was never clouded, knew well that 
the time for addresses and petitions had passed. Averse 
as he had been to independence as an original proposition, 
he was not deceived by any fond fancies in regard to the 
present situation, which had developed so rapidly in a few 
months. War had begun, and that meant, as he well 
knew, however men might hesitate about it, a settlement 
by war. He had already made up his mind fully as to his 
own course, and when the great responsibility came to him 
he accepted it at once, without shrinking, solemnly and 
modestly, stipulating only that he should receive no pay 
above his expenses, and saying that he did not feel equal 
to the command. Artemus Ward, then in command at 
Boston, Philip Schuyler, Israel Putnam, and Charles Lee, 
the last an English adventurer, glib of tongue and quite 
worthless, were chosen major-generals. Horatio Gates, 
another Englishman, thanks to the same natural colonial 
spirit which chose Lee, was appointed adjutant-general. 
Pomeroy, Heath, and Thomas of Massachusetts, Wooster 
and Spencer of Connecticut, Sullivan of New Hampshire, 
Montgomery of New York, and the Quaker, Nathaniel 
Greene of Rhode Island, who proved the most brilliant of 
them all, were appointed brigadiers. 

Thus, while they petitioned the King, shrank from in- 
dependence, and sought conciliation and peace by ad- 
dresses and memorials, the second American Congress at 



THE SECOND CONGRESS 69 

the same time took into their service an army already in 
the field, and sent the greatest soldier of the time to com- 
mand it and to fight the troops of the Sovereign whom 
they still acknowledged. Very contradictory and yet very 
human and natural all this, for great causes are not carried 
out, nor do great forces move upon the straight lines 
marked out by the critic or the student, but along the 
devious and winding paths which human nature always 
traces for itself when it is brought face to face with diffi- 
culties and trials which it would fain avoid and must meet. 



\ 



CHAPTER IV 

THE REPLY TO LORD SANDWICH 

WHILE Congress was thus debating and resolv- 
ing, the people were acting. After the Con- 
cord fight some sixteen thousand armed men 
gathered about Boston and laid siege to the town. They 
were under different and independent commands, undis- 
ciplined, ill-armed, with no heavy guns fit for siege opera- 
tions. But through their zeal in a common cause, for the 
time, at least, they made up in activity what they lacked 
in organization and equipment. They managed to cut off 
Boston from the surrounding country, so that actual dis- 
tress began to prevail among the inhabitants, and thou- 
sands who sympathized with the patriots abandoned the 
town and made their way to the neighboring villages. 
With no regular works anywhere, the Americans still con- 
trived to have men at all important points, and in some 
fashion to prevent communication with the country. In 
addition they swept the harbor-islands clean of cattle and 
sheep, and this work led to frequent skirmishes, in one of 
which the Americans destroyed two British vessels and 
drove off the royal troops. An effort to provision Boston 
with sheep brought from the southward was frustrated by 
the people of New Bedford, who fitted out two vessels, 
captured those of the enemv with the live-stock on board, 



THE REPLY TO LORD SANDWICH 71 

and beat off a British sloop-of-war. It is not easy to un- 
derstand how the Americans, ill-equipped as they were, 
were able thus to maintain the lines around Boston and 
hold besieged regular troops amounting at that time to 
over five thousand men, and very soon afterward to more 
than ten thousand. The fact can be explained only by 
the utter incompetency of the British commander, Gen- 
eral Gage. With the troops under him he ought at any 
time to have been able to break the extended American 
line and drive them from point to point. Indeed, he 
should never have permitted them to close in on him. 
Instead of taking vigorous action, however, he occupied 
himself with making treaties with the selectmen of the 
town for the withdrawal of the inhabitants and with issu- 
ing tierce proclamations, while he allowed the enemy to 
hold him a virtual prisoner. It is not to be wondered at 
that when Burgovne, Clinton, and Howe arrived with re- 
inforcements they should have been amazed that the King's 
troops had not long since beaten and driven off the " peas- 
ants," as they called them, who surrounded the town. Vet 
the new generals seem only to have added to the sum total 
of British incompetency. With largely increased forces 
they still did not attack the Americans or drive them away. 
On the contrary, the attack came from the " peasants," 
and not from the army of veterans imprisoned in Boston. 

The Americans were spurred on to action by reports 
that the British were about to seize certain strategic points 
and fortify them, and that expeditions were preparing for 
this purpose. In order to be beforehand with them the 
council of war prepared a plan for a series of works and 
redoubts on the northern side of the city, reaching from 
what is now Somerville to the hills of Charlestown, which 



72 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 




[It will be noticed that this map, from British surveys, perpetuates the mistake 
which caused the name of Bunker Hill, rather than Breed's Hill, to be given to the 
battle. In reality, Breed's Hill, where the redoubt was, is the one nearer Boston.] 



bordered on the river and harbor. General Ward and 
others of the commanding officers naturally opposed this 
plan so far as it related to the extreme point of the hills in 



THE REPLY TO LORD SANDWICH 73 

Charlestown, for the very excellent reason that they had 
but little powder and no cannon, and that without these 
essential aids it seemed rash in the extreme to take a posi- 
tion near the British lines which threatened Boston itself, 
and where they could be cut off by an enterprising ene- 
my seizing the narrow neck which connected the penin- 
sula with the main land. While they were debating this 
question news came from a trustworthy source that on 
June 1 8th the British intended to seize Dorchester Heights, 
to the south of the town, and it was clear that if they 
should be successful in this movement it would not only 
absolutely protect Boston, but would make the American 
positions difficult if not untenable. Considerations of pru- 
dence were therefore laid aside, and the committee of 
safety decided that it was necessary to occupy at once 
Charlestown Neck and Bunker Hill. General Ward and 
the others were quite right in thinking this a desperate un- 
dertaking for which they were totally unprepared, and yet 
the committee of safety, favored as thev were by fortune, 
proved to be on the broadest grounds correct. It was es- 
sential to hold the British where they were in the town. 
If they once got possession of the commanding points out- 
side, it would be impossible to drive them out of Boston, 
and one of the principal American cities would remain in 
the enemy's hands. If, on the other hand, the Americans 
seized a position close to the British lines and became the 
aggressors, then whether they failed or succeeded in hold- 
ing their ground permanently, they would, by fighting, 
prevent the enemy from making an advance movement, 
and from so strengthening and extending his lines that he 
could neither be closely beseiged nor forced from the 
town. 



74 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

Thus it came about, either by sound military instinct 
or by equally sound reasoning, that the order was issued 
to occupy and fortify Bunker Hill in Charlestown, and 
late in the afternoon of June 1 6th the troops selected for 
this duty were ordered to parade. Three Massachusetts 
regiments, two hundred Connecticut men as a fatigue 
party, and an artillery company with two field-pieces 
formed the detachment. Drawn up on Cambridge Com- 
mon they stood quietly in the summer twilight and listened 
to the fervent prayer of Samuel Langdon, the President 
of Harvard College, as he blessed them and bade them 
God-speed. Then the word was given, and with Colonel 
Prescott in command and at the front, and their intrench- 
ing tools in carts bringing up the rear, they started as the 
darkness fell and marched to Charlestown. When they 
reached the Neck they halted, and a small party was de- 
tached to guard and watch the town while the main body 
went on to Bunker Hill. Here they halted again, and a 
long discussion ensued as to where they should intrench. 
The orders said plainly Bunker Hill, but the nature of the 
ground said with equal plainness Breed's Hill, which was 
farther to the front, nearer to the river, and more threaten- 
ing to the city. The dispute went on until the engineer 
begged for a speedy decision, and they then determined 
to throw up the intrenchments on Breed's Hill and fortify 
Bunker Hill afterward. 

Then the work began. Gridley marked out the lines 
for the intrenchment and did it well. He was an accom- 
plished engineer ami had seen service at Louisburg and in 
the old French war. The redoubt he laid out in haste 
that night excited the admiration of the enemy the next 
day. The lines drawn, a thousand men set to work with 



THE REPLY TO LORD SANDWICH 77 

spades to raise the earthworks. These American soldiers, 
called hastily from their farms, lacked organization and 
military discipline, but they were intelligent, independent 
men, accustomed to turn their hand to anything. They 
could shoot and they could also dig. They were able to 
handle the spade as dexterously and effectively as the rifle. 
It was well for them that they could do so, for the June 
night was short, and quick work was vital. Close by them 
along the river-front lay live men-of-war and several float- 
ing batteries, all within gunshot. On the other side of the 
stream the British sentinels paced up and down the shore. 
Prescott, when the work began, sent a small detachment 
under Maxwell to patrol Charlestown and guard the ferry. 
Twice during the night he went down himself to the edge 
of the water and listened intently to catch the drowsy cry 
of " All's well " from the watch on the British ships. The 
work, therefore, had to be not only quick but quiet, and 
it is a marvel that no British sentry, and still more, no 
sailor on the men-of-war, detected the movement on the 
hill or heard the click of the spades and the hum and stir 
of a thousand men toiling as they never toiled before. 
But the Americans labored on in silence under the sum- 
mer starlight, faster and faster, until the gray dawn began 
to show faintly in the east. When the light came, the 
sailors on the nearest sloop suddenly saw that intrench- 
ments six feet high had sprung up in the night and were 
frowning at them from the nearest hill. The sight of the 
works was a complete surprise, and the captain of the 
Lively, without waiting for orders, opened fire. The 
sound of the guns roused Boston. British officers and 
townspeople alike rushed out to see what had happened. 
To the former that which met their eyes was not an en- 



78 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

couraging sight, for with those Charlestown hills fortified 
and in the hands of the enemy, Boston would be untenable 
and they would be forced to abandon the town. Gage at 
once called a council of officers and they determined that 
the works on Breed's Hill must be taken immediately and 
at all hazards, and the Americans driven off. Unwilling, 
on account of Ward's army at Cambridge, to land on the 
Neck, which had been left practically unguarded, and thus 
assail the redoubt from behind, the one thing of all others 
to do, and thoroughly despising their opponents, of whom 
they knew nothing, they decided to make a direct attack 
in front, and orders went forth at once to draw out the 
troops and transport them by boats to Charlestown. 

Meantime the battery on Copp's Hill and the water- 
batteries had been firing on the American works. The 
fire, however, was ineffective, and the Americans continued 
their task of finishing and perfecting their intrenchments 
and of building the interior platforms. Made in such 
haste, they. were rude defences at best, but all that could be 
done was done. At first when a private was killed by a 
cannon-ball there was some alarm among the men unac- 
customed to artillery fire, and Colonel Prescott therefore 
mounted the parapet and walked slowly up and down 
to show them that there was no serious danger. The sight 
of that tall, soldierly figure standing calmly out in full view 
of the enemy gave confidence at once, and there were no 
more murmurs of alarm, although when the tide was at 
flood some of the war-ships were able to enfilade the re- 
doubt and pour in a better-directed fire. So the day wore 
on with its accompaniment of roaring cannon, the Ameri- 
cans waiting patiently under the hot sun, tired and thirsty, 
but ready and eager to fight. 



THE REPLY TO LORD SANDWICH 




PRESCOTT ON THE PARAPET AT BUNKER HILL. 

Tfie sight of that tall, soldierly figure standing calmly out in full view of the enemy gave confidence at once. 

At noon the British troops marched through the streets 
of Boston, and began to embark under cover of an in- 
creased and strongly sustained fire from the ships and float- 
ing batteries. By one o'clock they had landed in good 
order at Moulton's Point, and formed in three lines. Not 



8o THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

liking the looks of the redoubt now that he was near to it, 
General Howe sent for reinforcements, and while he waited 
for them his men dined. Prescott, too, early in the morn- 
ing" had sent for reinforcements, and the news that the 
British had landed, caused a great stir in the camp at Cam- 
bridge, but owing to the lack of organization only a few 
fresh troops ever reached the hill. Some leaders arrived, 
like Warren and Pomeroy and General Putnam, who did 
admirable service throughout the day. John Stark came 
over with his New Hampshire company, declining to 
quicken his step across the Neck, which was swept by the 
British fire, and brought his men on the field in good con- 
dition. But with some few exceptions of this sort, Pres- 
cott was obliged to rely entirely on the small detachment he 
had himself led there the night before. Seeing a move- 
ment on the part of the British which made him believe 
that they were going to try to turn his position on the left, 
with the true military instinct and quick decision which he 
displayed throughout the day Prescott detached Colonel 
Knowlton with the Connecticut troops and the artillery to 
oppose the enemy's right wing. Knowlton took a posi- 
tion near the base of the hill, behind a stone fence with a 
rail on top. In front he hastily built another fence and 
filled the space between the two with freshly cut grass from 
the meadow. It was not such a work as a Vauban would 
have built, or foreign military experts would have praised, 
but the Americans of that day, instead of criticising it be- 
cause it was not on the approved foreign model, made the 
best of it and proceeded to use it to good purpose. While 
Knowlton was thus engaged he was joined by Stark and 
the New Hampshire men, and with their aid was enabled 
to extend and strengthen his line. 



THE REPLY TO LORD SANDWICH 81 

At last the forces were in position. The long hours of 
quiet waiting in the burning sun were drawing to an end. 
The British forces were at length in line, and soon after 
three o'clock Howe briefly told his men that they were the 
finest troops in the world, and that the hill must be taken. 
Then he gave the word, and under cover of a very heavy 
fire from the ships, the batteries, and the artillery, they 
began to advance, marching in admirable order with all 
the glitter and show of highly disciplined troops. They 
were full of cheerful, arrogant confidence. They despised 
the Provincials and looked with scorn on the rude works. 
They had been taught to believe also that the Americans 
were cowards. Had not Lord Sandwich and other emi- 
nent persons, whom they were bound to credit, told them 
so ? They expected a short, sharp rush, a straggling fire, 
a panic-stricken retreat of the enemy, and an easy victory 
to celebrate that evening in Boston. 

Howe led the attack on the flank in person, aiming at 
the rail fence and the collection of " rustics," as he would 
have called them, who were gathered there. General Pigot 
led the assault in front upon the redoubt itself. On they 
marched, very fine to look upon in their brilliant uniforms 
and with their shining arms. Onward still they went, the 
artillery booming loudly over their heads. They began to 
draw near the works and yet the enemy gave no sign. The 
sun was very hot, and they had heavy knapsacks just as if 
they were going on a march instead of into action, which 
was natural from their point of view, for they expected no 
battle. The grass, too, was very long, and the fences were 
many. It was harder getting at the Americans, the heat 
was greater, the way longer, than they had imagined, but 
these things after all were trifles, and they would soon be 



82 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

on the rebels now. Still all was silent in the redoubts. 
They came within gunshot. There were a few straggling 
shots from the fort, quickly suppressed, and it looked as if 
the officers were going round the parapet knocking up the 
guns. What could it all mean ? Were the Provincials 
groins: to retreat without firing at all ? It would seem that 
they were more cowardly than even the liberal estimate 
made by Lord Sandwich allowed. Perhaps most of them 
had slipped away already. In any event, it would soon be 
over. On then fast, for it was well within gunshot now. 
Forward again quickly, and the separating distance is only 
ten or twelve rods. Suddenly they heard from the fort the 
sharp order to fire. A sheet of flame sweeps down from 
the redoubt. It is a deadly, murderous fire. The execu- 
tion is terrible. Officers fall in all directions. The British 
troops, and there are in truth no finer or braver in the 
world, return the lire sharply, but not well. The lines 
waver and gaps open everywhere in the ranks. Meantime 
the lire from the fort continues, steady, rapid, effective, 
evidently aimed by marksmen whose nerves are in good 
order. 

How were they faring meanwhile at the rail fence, 
where General Howe was leading his men in person ? Not 
quite so silent here. The two little American field-pieces 
opened effectively as the British advanced. There were 
some straggling shots from the fence, quickly suppressed 
as on the hill, hut they drew the lire of the troops who 
came on, firing regularly as if on parade. It would not 
take long to dispose of this flimsy barrier. On, then, and 
forward. They came within gunshot, they came within ten 
rods, and now the rail fence flamed as the American lire 
ran down the line. This, too, was a deadly lire. The ofii- 



THE REPLY TO LORD SANDWICH 83 

cers were picked off. The troops began to break, so sav- 
age was the slaughter. On hill and meadow, before redoubt 
and rail fence, the British columns gave way. They could 
not stand the execution that was being done upon them. 
Pigot ordered a retreat, and Howe's men broke and seat 
tered. As the British troops recoiled and fell back, cut up 
by the American fire, the Americans sprang forward with 
cheers eager to pursue, restrained only by their officers, and 
shouting, " Are the Yankees cowards ? " Lord Sandwich 
was answered. Whatever the final result, the men who 
had met and repulsed that onslaught were not cowards. 

General Howe soon rallied his surprised and broken 
troops and formed them again in well-drawn lines. The 
British then set fire to the village of Charlestown, a per- 
fectly wanton and utterly useless performance, as the wind 
carried the smoke away from the redoubt, and did not take 
possession of the Neck, which would have thrown the 
whole American force on the hills helplessly into their 
hands. The ships then renewed their bombardment with 
increased fury ; the artillery was advanced on the right, 
where it could do much more execution upon the defenders 
of the rail fence, and with the little town in flames on their 
left, the British moved forward to a second assault. They 
advanced firing, their march encumbered now not only by 
long grass and fences, but by the bodies of their comrades 
fallen in the first attack. Their fire did little execution, 
for they aimed too high. Still they moved on with their well- 
ordered lines. Again the redoubt was silent. They came 
within gunshot, within ten rods, still silence. Now they 
were within six rods and now came again that sheet of 
flame and the deadly fire. This time they were not taken 
by surprise. They knew now that there were men behind 



84 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

those rude earthworks who could and would shoot straight, 
.mil who had not run away at their approach. They stag- 
gered under the shock of this first volley, but rallied gal- 
lantly and came on. Could the Americans maintain their 
ground after one volley? It appeared that they could. 
Colonel Prcscott said there was a "continuous stream of 
lire from the redoubt." So continuous, so rapid, and so 
steady was it, that the British never got across the short 
distance which remained. They struggled bravely forward, 
many falling within a few yards of the redoubt and on the 
very slopes of the embankment. Then they gave way, this 
time in confusion, and fled. Some ran even to the boats. 
It was the same at the rail fence. Despite the artillery 
playing on their left, the Americans stood firm and poured 
in their fatal volleys when the enemy came within the pre- 
scribed line. Howe's officers and aides fell all about him, 
so that at times he was left almost alone, a gallant figure in 
the thick of the slaughter, in the midst of dead and dying, 
his silk stockings splashed with blood and still calling to 
his soldiers to come on. The men who shot down his staff 
spared him. Perhaps the memory of the equally gallant 
brother whom they had followed in the Old French War, 
and a monument to that brother placed in Westminster 
Abbey by the province of Massachusetts, turned aside the 
guns which could have picked him off as they did hiscom- 
panions in arms. But at that moment no personal cour- 
age in the commander could hold the troops. They broke 
as the main column had broken on Breed's Hill before the 
sustained and fatal lire of the Americans, and swept back- 
ward almost in a panic to the shore and the boats. 

This second repulse was far more serious both in losses 
and in moral effeel than the first. So long a time elapsed 



THE REPLY TO LORD SANDWICH 



87 




before the British moved again that some of the American 
officers thought that the enemy would not try the works 
a third time. The interval 
of delay, however, served 
only to disclose the inherent 
weakness of the American 
position. The men had be- 
haved with steady courage, 
and fought most admirably, 
but they were entirely un- 
supported, and without sup- 
port the position was unten- 
able against repeated attacks 
from a superior force, and a 
mere trap if the British gen- 
eral had had the intelligence 
to seize the Neck. The 
American army at Cam- 
bridge had no real military organization, the general was 
without a staff, and, though a brave man, was unable to sup- 
ply the deficiencies by his own energy and genius. Prescott 
had sent early in the day for reinforcements, but such confu- 
sion prevailed at Cambridge that none were dispatched to 
his assistance in an intelligent and effective manner. A 
number of companies, indeed, started from Cambridge for 
Charlestown. Some turned back, unwilling to face the 
fire of the ships which swept the Neck. Stark came 
through, as has been said, early in the day, and did 
splendid service with his men at the rail fence ; but the 
others for the most part never came into action at all. 
Orders were disobeyed, contradictory commands issued, 
and men straggled away from their regiments, some to 



GENERAL WILLIAM HOWE. 



ngra'vinjr after f lie portrait by Dodd, May 
13, 178O. 



88 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

retreat, some to join in desultory and independent fight- 
ing from outlying positions. Therefore, despite the great 
efforts of some of the officers, and especially of General 
Putnam, such men as really succeeded in reaching Charles- 
town remained in confusion on Bunker Hill in the rear 
of the redoubt. Even worse than the failure to support 
Preseott with troops, which was due to lack of discipline 
and leadership, was the failure to send him ammunition. 
He found himself forced to face a third attack, with 
no fresh soldiers, but only his own men who had been dig- 
ging all night and fighting all day, and with scarcely any 
powder. Most of his men had only a single round, none 
more than three, and they broke up the cartridges of the 
cannon to get a last pitiful supply. With the shadow of 
certain defeat upon him, Preseott saw the British prepare 
for a third assault. Howe, not without difficulty, had 
rallied his men and reformed his ranks, while a reinforce- 
ment of four hundred marines had landed and joined him. 
He also had learned a lesson, and had found out that he 
had a dangerous enemy before him. This time the 
British soldiers laid aside their knapsacks, and advanced 
in light order. This time, too, only a feint was made at 
the rail fence, and the whole attack, as well as the artil- 
lery fire, was concentrated on the redoubt. Preseott knew 
that without powder, and with scarcely any bayonets, he 
could not shatter the columns before they reached the 
breastworks, nor repel an enemy capable of a bayonet 
charge once they had reached the parapet. Nevertheless, 
he determined to stand his ground, and make to the last 
the best fight he could. The British moved forward, this 
time in silence. " Make every shot tell," said Preseott to 
his men, and when the British were within twenty yards 



THE REPLY TO LORD SANDWICH 



89 



the Americans, standing their ground firmly under the 
artillery fire, poured in a withering volley. The British 
line staggered, but came on. As they mounted the para- 
pet another light volley did even more execution, but it 
was the last. The American powder was exhausted, and 
the Minute Men could meet the bayonets only with 




JOSEPH IVARREX, KILLED AT BUNKER HILL. 

From ,1 portrait fainted by Copley in /;: /. 

clubbed muskets. It was a useless and hopeless waste of 
life to contend with such odds under such conditions, and 
Prescott gave the word to retreat. His men fell back from 
the redoubt, he himself going last, and parrying bayonet 
thrusts with his sword. Now it was that the Americans 
suffered most severely, and that Warren, one of the best 
beloved of the popular leaders, was killed. Nevertheless, 
the men drew off steadily and without panic. The brave 



90 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

troops at the rail fence who had fought so well all day, 
checked the British advance and covered the retreat of the 
main body under Prescott ; Andrew McClary, the gallant 
major of the New Hampshire company, being killed as 
he brought off his men. All that was left of the little 
American band retreated in good order across the Neck. 
They were not pursued. General Clinton, who had joined 
before the last attack, urged Howe to follow up his vic- 
tory, but Howe and his men had had enough. They took 
possession of Bunker II ill with fresh reinforcements, and 
contented themselves with holding what they had gained, 
while the Americans established themselves upon the hills 
on the other side of Charlestown Neck. They had been 
driven from their advanced position, but one great result 
had been gained. The losses had been so severe that the 
British plan to take Dorchester Heights had to be given 
up. If the colonists could have held Breed's Hill, the 
British would have been compelled to abandon Boston at 
once; but the fact that they failed to hold it did not give 
the British a position which enabled them to command 
the American lines, or to prevent a close siege which 
would ultimately force evacuation. 

Such was the battle of Bunker Hill. The victory was 
with the British, lor they took the contested ground and 
held it. But the defeat of Bunker Hill was worth many 
victories to the Americans. It proved to them that Brit- 
ish troops were not invincible, as they had been so confi- 
dently assured. It proved their own lighting capacity, 
and gave strength and hearfto the people of every colony. 
Concord and Lexington had made civil war inevitable. 
Bunker Hill showed that the Revolution, lightly led, was 
certain to succeed. The story of Bunker Hill battle has 



THE REPLY TO LORD SANDWICH 91 

been told in prose and verse many times, and there is 
nothing to be added to the facts, but there was a meaning 
to it which was entirely overlooked at the moment, and 
which has never been sufficiently emphasized since. The 
fact that the British carried the hill is nothing-, for they 
lost thirteen colonies in consequence. But it is in the sta- 
tistics of the battle that the real lesson lay, a lesson which 
showed how disastrous a day it really had been for the 
British army, and which if taken to heart by the Ministry, 
a thing quite impossible under the circumstances, might 
have led even then to peace and concession. The price 
paid for that hill on June 17, 1775, was enormous, without 
regard to more remote results. Never had the British 
troops behaved with more stubborn bravery ; never had 
they been more ruthlessly sacrificed, and never up to that 
time had British soldiers faced such a fire. They brought 
into action something over three thousand men, and not 
more than thirty-five hundred. The official British returns 
give the killed and wounded as 1,054. The Americans in 
Boston insisted that the British loss reached 1,500, but let 
us take only the official return of 1,054. That means that 
the British loss was a trifle over thirty per cent. The sig- 
nificance of these figures can only be understood by a few 
comparisons. The statistics of losses in Marlborough's 
battles are rough and inexact, but so far as we know the 
allies lost at Blenheim, where only 16,000 of the 55,000 
were British troops, about twenty-five per cent.; at Ramil- 
lies about seven per cent. ; at Malplaquet less than twenty- 
five per cent.; at Fontenoy, where the Duke of Cumber- 
land, the " Martial Boy, sans pair ct sans avis," hurled 
the British force at the centre of the French line in a 
charge as magnificent and desperate as it was wild and 



92 



T HE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



foolish, there were 28,000 English 
soldiers in the army, and the loss 
in killed and wounded was some- 
what over fourteen per cent. Thus 
we see the correctness of the state- 
ment that no English soldiers had 
at that time ever faced such a fire 
as they met at Bunker 1 1 ill. In 
later times the British loss at Wa- 
terloo was nearly thirty-four per 
cent, and the loss of the allied 
armies about fifteen per cent; while 
at Gettysburg the Union army lost 
about twenty-five per cent, and 
these were two of the Moodiest ot 
modern battles. Waterloo lasted all 
daw Gettysburg three days, Bunker 
1 [ill, an hour and a half. At ( irave- 
lotte, the most severe battle of our 
own time, and with modern weap- 
ons, the German loss was less than 
fourteen per cent, 'lake another 
significant feature at Bunker Hill. 
One hundred and fifty-seven British 
officers were killed or wounded. 
Wellington had four hundred and 
fifty-six killed or wounded at Wa- 
in loo. 1 1 the Bunker 1 lill propor- 
tion hail been maintained he should have lost nine hundred 
and forty-two. The American loss was less than the British, 
because the men foughl from behind intrenchments, and 
it was sustained chiefly in the last hand-to-hand struggle. 




OF BUNKER 

HILL MONUMENT FROM 

■ s HILL ( EMETERY. 

In!! was tht 

■ 
Bunker Hill 



THE REPLY TO LORD SANDWICH 93 

Nevertheless, it was very severe. At different times the 
Americans appear to have had in Charlestown between 
two and three thousand men, but Washington, who was 
most accurate and had careful returns, stated that t hex- 
never had more than fifteen hundred men engaged, which 
agrees with the best estimates that can be now made of 
the number of men who fought at the redoubt and behind 
the rail fence. The American loss was, from the best re- 
ports available, four hundred and eleven killed and wound- 
ed, at least twenty per cent, of the whole force actually 
engaged. 

These statistics of the British loss, when analyzed, 
show the gallantry of the English soldiers, which no other 
race at that time could have equalled, and a folly on the 
part of their commanders in attempting to rush an earth- 
work held by such opponents, which it is hard to realize. 
Yet it is in the reasons for that very folly, which proved 
such a piece of good fortune to Prescott and his men, that 
we can find an explanation for the American Revolution, 
and for the disasters to the British arms which accom- 
panied it. 

Englishmen generally took the view that the people 
of the American Colonies were in all ways inferior to 
themselves, and particularly in lighting capacity. Lord 
Sandwich was not exceptional in his ignorance when he 
declared that the Yankees were cowards. Weight was 
given to what he said merely because he happened to be 
a peer, but his views were shared by most public men in 
England, and by most of the representatives of the Eng- 
lish Crown in America, both military and civil. The 
opinion of statesmen like Chatham, Camden, or Burke, 
was disregarded, while that of Lord Sandwich and othet 



94 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

persons equally unintelligent was accepted. It was this 
stupidity and lack of knowledge which gave birth to the 
policy that resulted in colonial resistance to the Stamp 
Act, and later to the assembling of the first Revolution- 
ary Congress. It seems very strange that intelligent men 
should have had such ideas in regard to the people of the 
American Colonies, when the slightest reflection would 
have disclosed to them the truth. The men of New- 
England, against whom their wrath was first directed, 
were of almost absolutely pure English stock. Thev were 
descendants of the Puritans, and of the men who followed 
Cromwell and formed the famous army which he led to 
a series of unbroken victories. Whatever the faults of 
the Puritans may have been, no one ever doubted their 
ability in public affairs, their qualities as citizens, or, above 
all, their lighting capacity. In the one hundred and 
twenty-five years which had elapsed since that period, 
what had happened to make their descendants in the New 
World degenerate? The people of New England had 
made a hard light to establish their homes in the wilder- 
ness, to gather subsistence, and, later, wealth from an 
ungrateful soil and from the stormy seas of the North 
Atlantic. They had been engaged in almost constant 
warfare with the Indians and French and had formed a 
large part of the armies with which Pitt had wrested 
Canada from France. Surely there was nothing j n a |] 
this to weaken their film- or to destroy their lighting 
qualities. Frontiersmen and pioneers whose arms were 
the axe and the rifle, s'unlv farmers and hardy fishermen 
from the older settlements, of almost pure English blood, 
with a small infusion of Huguenots and a slight mingling, 
chiefly in New Hampshire, of Scotch-Irish from London- 



THE REPLY TO LORD SANDWICH 95 

derry, were not, on the face of things, likely to be timid 
or weak. Yet these were the very men Lord Sandwich 
and the Ministry, and England generally, set down as 
cowards, who would run like sheep before the British 
troops. While the resistance to the English policy of 
interference was confined to the arena of debate and of 
parliamentary opposition, the rulers of England found 
the representatives of these American people to be good 
lawyers, keen politicians and statesmen, able to frame 
state papers of the highest merit. Untaught, however, by 
the controversy of words, they resorted to force ; and 
when the British generals, on the morning of June 17th, 
beheld the rude earthworks on Breed's Hill, their only 
feeling was one of scorn for the men who had raised them, 
and of irritation at the audacity which prompted the act. 
With such beliefs they undertook to march up to the re- 
doubt as they would have paraded to check the advance 
of a city mob. When they came within range they were 
met by a fire which, in accuracy and in rapidity, surpassed 
anything they had ever encountered. As they fell back 
broken from the slopes of the hill their one feeling was 
that of surprise. Yet all that had happened was the most 
natural thing in the world. To men who had fought in 
the French and Indian wars, who had been bred on the 
farm and fishing smack, who were accustomed to arms 
from their youth, who, with a single bullet, could pick off 
a squirrel from the top of the highest tree, it was an easy 
matter, even though they were undisciplined, to face the 
British soldiers and cut them down with a fire so accurate 
that even stubborn British courage could not withstand 
it. Contempt for all persons not living in England, 
and profound ignorance of all people but their own, were 



96 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

the reasons for the merciless slaughter which came upon 
the British soldiers at the battle of Hunker Hill. The 
lesson of that day was wasted upon England, because in- 
sular contempt for every other people on earth, even if 
they are kith and kin, is hard to overcome. It was, how- 
ever, a good beginning, and the lesson was ultimately 
learned, for the same ignorance and contempt which led 
to the reckless charges against the Charlestown earth- 
works dictated the policy and sustained the war which 
cost England the surrender of two armies and the loss of 
thirteen great colonies. Perfect satisfaction with one's 
self, coupled with a profound ignorance and openly ex- 
pressed contempt in regard to other people, no doubt tend 
to comfort in life, but they sometimes prove to be luxur- 
ies which it is expensive to indulge in too freely. 



CHAPTER V 

THE SIEGE OF BOSTON 

BUNKER HILL revealed at once the strength 
and weakness of the Americans. At Bunker 
Hill, as at Concord and Lexington, it was the 
people who had risen up and fought, just as fifteen years 
later it was the people of France who rose up and defied 
Europe, unchaining a new force which the rulers of 
Europe despised until it crushed them. So England de- 
spised her colonists, and when they turned against her 
they started the great democratic movement and let loose 
against the mother-country a new force, that of a whole 
people ready to do battle for their rights. The power 
which this new force had and the native lighting qualities 
of the American soldiers were vividly shown at Bunker 
Hill, and there, too, was exhibited its weakness. The 
popular army was unorganized, divided into separate 
bands quite independent of each other, undisciplined, and 
unled. Hence the ultimate defeat which prevision, organ- 
ization, and tenacity of purpose would have so easily pre- 
vented. What the people could do fighting for them- 
selves and their own rights was plain. Equally plain was 
the point where they failed. Could they redeem this 
failure and eradicate the cause of it ? Could the popular 
force be organized, disciplined, trained, and made subor- 

97 



98 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

dinate to a single purpose? In other words, could it 
produce a leader, recognize him when found, concentrate 
in him all the power and meaning it had, rise out of 
anarchy and chaos into order and light, and follow one 
man through victory and defeat to ultimate triumph? 
'I hese were the really great questions before the .American 
people when the smoke had cleared and the bodies had 
been borne away from the slopes of Breed's Hill. 

In such a time few men look below the surface of 
events and the actors in it must deal with the hard, insist- 
ent laets which press close against them. No one realized 
that the American people had been brought suddenly to a 
harder trial than facing British bayonets. No one under- 
stood at the moment that it must quickly be determined 
whether the popular movement was able to bring forth a 
leader, and then submit to and obey him, or whether after 
an outburst of brave fighting it was to fall back into 
weakness, confusion, and defeat. 

\ et this mighty question was upon them, and even 
while they were still counting their dead in Boston and 
Cambridge, the leader was on his wav to put his fortune, 
which was that of the American Revolution, to the test. 
On June 2 i st Washington started from Philadelphia. He 
had ridden barely twenty miles when he met the messen- 
gers from Bunker Hill. There had been a battle, they said. 
He a^ked but one question, "Did the militia fight?" 
Winn told how they had fought, he said, "Then the liber- 
ties of the country are sale," and rode on. Give him men 
who would light and he would do the rest. Here was a 
leader clearly marked out. Would the people risen up in 
war recognize the great fact and acknowledge it? 

A pause in New York long enough to put Philip 



THE SIEGE OF BOSTON 



99 




WASHINGTON TAKING COMMAND OF THE ARMY. 

On July 3, 1775. at about nine in the moi ning, Washington, -with several of the general officers, Wi 

{nor mounted, as he is often represented) to the elm still standing by the edge of Cambridge Common, and there 
said afe-u words to the assembled troops, drew his sioordand took command of the ( ontinental Army. 

Schuyler in charge of military affairs in that colony, and 
Washington pushed on through Connecticut. On July 2d 
he was at Watertown, where he met the Provincial Con- 
gress of Massachusetts. An hour later, being little given 



L.ofC. 



ioo THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

to talk, he rode on to Cambridge and reached headquar- 
ters. The next day the troops were all drawn out on 
parade, and in their presence, and that of a great con- 
course, Washington drew his sword and formally took 
command of the American army. The act performed, 
cheers and shouts broke forth, and the booming of cannon 
told the story to the enemy in Boston. The people were 
evidently with him. They looked upon him as he rode 
down the lines and were content. The popular movement 
had found its leader, and the popular instinct recognized 
him. Yet Washington came to the men of New England 
a stranger. They were very different from him in thought, 
in habits, and in modes of life, and like all strong people 
they were set in their own ways and disposed to be sus- 
picious of those of others. But these men of New Eng- 
land none the less gave their entire confidence to Wash- 
ington at once and never withdrew it. As General in the 
field, and later as President, he always had the loyal sup- 
port of these reserved, hard-headed, and somewhat cold, 
people. They recognized him as a leader that morning 
on Cambridge Common, for there was that in his look and 
manner which impressed those who looked upon him with 
a sense of power. lie was a man to be trusted and fol- 
lowed, and the keen intelligence of New England grasped 
the fact at the first glance. 

Washington did not understand them quite as quickly 
as they understood him, for with the people it was an in- 
stinct, while with him understanding came from experience. 
At first, too, it was a rough experience. lie found his new 
soldiers independent in their ways, as unaccustomed to dis- 
cipline as they were averse to it, electing and deposing their 
officers, disposed to insubordination, and only too ready to 



THE SIEGE OF BOSTON 



IOI 



go off in order to attend to their domestic affairs, and return 
in leisurely fashion when their business was done. To a sol- 
dier like Washington this was all intolerable, and he wrote 
and said many severe things about them, no doubt accom- 
panying his words sometimes when he spoke with out- 



wwwr-m 



i'''\h 




r-;* 



liiik 





n 



i i 






VICINITY OF THE WASHINGTON ELM, CAMBRIDGE, AT THE PRESENT TIME. 



In the background. 



■:d by a fence and -with a tablet marking it in front, 
Washington took command of the army. 



ndcr which 



bursts of wrath before which the boldest shrank. The of- 
ficers and contractors troubled him even more than the 
men, for he found them hard bargainers,, sharp, and, as it 
often seemed to him, utterly selfish. He dealt with these 
evils in the effective and rapid way with which he always 
met such difficulties. In his own plain language he made 



io2 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

"a good slam" among the wrong-doers and the faint- 
hearted. He broke several officers, put others under ar- 
rest, and swiftly changed the whole tone of the army. He 
had less trouble with the rank and file than with the of- 
ficers, but all soon came straight, the criticisms of his 
troops disappear from his letters, and six months later he 
praises them in high terms. He entered on the war with 
an army composed wholly of New England men. He 
ended the revolution with an army, after seven years' fight- 
ing, largely made up from the same New England people, 
and then it was that he said that there were no better 
troops in the world. The faults which annoyed him so 
much at the outset had long since vanished under his 
leadership, and the fine qualities of the men, their cour- 
age, intelligence, endurance, and grim tenacity of purpose 
had become predominant. 

Washington, a great commander, had the genius for 
srettinar all that was best out of the men under him, but 
the work of organizing and disciplining the army at Cam- 
bridge was the least of the troubles which confronted him 
when lie faced the situation at Boston. Moreover, he 
knew all the difficulties, for he not only saw them, hut he 
was never under delusions as to either pleasant or disagree- 
able facts. One of his greatest qualities was his absolute 
veracity of mind; lie always looked a faet of any sort 
squarely in the face, and this is what he saw when he turned 
to the task before him. The town of Boston, the richest, 
and next to Philadelphia the most populous in the colonies, 
was in the hands of the enemy, who had some twelve 
thousand regular troops, well armed, perfectly disciplined, 
and thoroughly supplied with every munition of war. This 
well-equipped force had command of the sea, and how 



THE SIEGE OF BOSTON 103 

much the sea-power meant, Washington understood thor- 
oughly. He knew with his broad grasp of mind what no 
one else appreciated at all, that in the sea-power was the 
key of the problem and the strength of the English. That 
gone, all would be easy. While England commanded the 
sea the struggle was certain to be long and doubtful. All 
the later years of the war, indeed, were devoted by Wash- 
ington to a combination by which through the French al- 
liance he could get a sea-control. When he obtained it, he 
swept the chief British army out of existence, and ended 
the war. But here at the start at Boston the enemy had 
control of the sea, and there was no way of getting it from 
them. The set task of driving the British out of Boston 
must be performed, therefore, while they commanded the 
sea, and had a powerful fleet at their backs. What means 
did Washington have to accomplish this formidable under- 
taking? An unorganized army of raw men, brave and 
ready to fight, but imperfectly armed, and still more im- 
perfectly disciplined. The first thing that Washington did 
on taking command was to count his soldiers, and at the 
end of eight days he had a complete return, which he 
should have obtained in an hour, and that return showed 
him fourteen thousand men instead of the twenty thousand 
he had been promised. What a task it was to drive from 
Boston twelve thousand regular troops, supported by a 
fleet; and only fourteen thousand militia to do it with. 
How could it be done ? Not by a popular uprising, for 
uprisings do not hold out for months with patient endur- 
ance and steady pushing toward a distant aim. No, this 
was work that must be done by one man, embodying and 
leading, it is true, the great popular force which had started 
into life, but still one man. It was for George Washing- 



104 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

ton, with such means as he had or could create, to take the 
town, and the story of the siege of Boston is simply the 
story of how he did it. 

Very rapidly discipline improved, and the militia took 
on the ways and habits of a regular army. The lines were 
extended and every strategic point covered, so that in a 
short time it was really impossible for the enemy to get 
out except bv a pitched battle fought at great disadvan- 
tage. Observers in the army and on the spot could not 
explain just how this was all brought about, but they knew 
what was done, and they saw the new general on the lines 
every daw By the end of July the army was in good form, 
ready to tight and to hold their works. Then it was sud- 
denly discovered that there was no gunpowder in the camp. 
An extensive line of works to be defended, a well-fnrnishcd 
regular army to be besieged, and only nine rounds of am- 
munition per man to do it with. There could hardly have 
been a worse situation, for if under such conditions the 
enemy were to make a well-supported sally, they could only 
be resisted for a few minutes at most. Washington faced 
the peril in silence and without wavering. Hard-riding 
couriers were despatched all over tin- country to every vil- 
lage and town to ask for, and, if need be, seize powder. A 
vessel was even sent to the Bermudas, where it was re- 
ported some gunpowder was to be had. By these desper- 
ate efforts enough powder was obtained to relieve the 
immediate strain, but all through the winter the supply 
c< >nt inued to be dangerously low. 

The anxieties and labors of the army and the siege were 
enough to tax the strongesl will and the keenest brain to 
the utmost, and yet Washington was obliged to carry al 
the -ime time all the responsibility for military operations 





. 



By the KING, 

A PROCLAMATIO 

For fuppfeffing Rebellion and Sedition. 

C E O R G K 11. 

11LR1 many of Our Subjcfts in divei " Our < Ionics :tions 

k> ■ Imerka, milled by dangerous and ill-defigning Men, and 

I the Allegiance which ' : to the P t h protected and ful 

ace of the Publick 

the Oppreflion of Our 

rocecded to an open and 

tier to withltand the 
-tution ot the Law, .. ,.1 traitoro iri ng a. 

inft Us- And whereas thct i !; '■• [i»rcAenrfi on hath 

been inucn promoted' ancf encouraged by the traitorou I udencc, Counfcls, and I 

divers wicked and d within this Realm : To the End therefore that none of Our J 

led! or violate tneir Duty through 1 morancc thereof, or through any Doubt of the Pr< i 

which the Law will allbrd to their Loyalty and Zeal ; We have thought fit, by and with the A-.: oi 

Council, to illuc this Our Koyal Proclamation, hereby declaring that not only all Our? 

il and Military: are obliged to exert their utmoft Endeavours to fupprefs liich Rebellion, and 

' tl.e Traitors to fufticc; but that all Our Subjects of this Realm and the Dominion-! thereunto 

id b) I aw to be aiding and alfilting in the SupprefTion of fuch Rebellion, and to 

diicloie and make known all trail I onfpiracics and Attempts againft Us, Our Crown ., 

(Irictly charge and command all Our Officers as well Civil' as Military, 

tnt and loyal Subjects, to nie their utmoft Endeavours to withltand and 

ii i , cllion, ami to difclofc and make known all Trealbns and traitorous Confpi- 

Ihall know to he againft Us, Our Crown and Dignity; and lor thai Purpofc, 

■ i i One of Our Principal Secretaries of State, or other proper Officer, due and 

: .1! Perfons who (ball be found carrying on Correspondence with, oi in any 

> aiding or abetting the Perfons now in open Arms and Rebellion againft our 

in any of Our Colonies and Plantations in North America, in ordei I 

i Punifhment the Authors, Perpetrators, and Abettors of fuch traitorous Defigns. 

Given at Our Court at St. Jama's, the Twenty-third Day of Augujl, 
(even hundred and levcnty-fivc, in the Fifteenth Yea; of Our 1' . 

God fave the King. 



L O N D o . 
Printed by Cbarltt Ejre and William Straban, Printers to th< King's inoft Excel I M 



A PROCLAMATION BY KING GEORGE III., AUGUST, , 7 75- 
Reproduced from out of tke original Broadsides in Dr. Emmet's collection now m the LenoA Library. 



106 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

everywhere. He was watching Johnson and his Indians 
in the valley of the Mohawk, and Tryon and the Tories in 
New York. IK- was urged to send troops to this place 
and that, and lie had to consider every demand and say 
" no " as he did to Connecticut and Long Island when he 
thought that the great objects of his campaign would be 
injured by such a diversion. At the same time he planned 
and sent out expeditions aimed at a distant but really vital 
point which showed how he grasped the whole situation, 
and how true his military conceptions were. He saw that 
one of the essential parts of his problem was to prevent in- 
vasion from the north, and that this could be done best by 
taking possession of Canada. Success in this direction was 
possible, if at all, only by an extremely quick and early 
movement, for in a very short time the British would be 
so strong in the valley of the St. Lawrence that any at- 
tempt on their positions would be quite hopeless. He 
therefore sent one expedition under Montgomery by Lake 
Champlain to Montreal, and another under Arnold through 
Maine to meet the New York forces at Quebec. Mont- 
gomery met with entire success. lie passed up the lake, 
after a siege took St. Johns, and then pressed on to Mon- 
treal, which he captured without difficulty. Meantime 
Arnold, with some eleven hundred men, was making his 
desperate march through the forests of Maine. Even now 
a large part of his route is still a wilderness. He encoun- 
tered every obstacle and hardship that it is possible to con- 
ceive hunger, cold, exposure, terrible marches through 
primeval woods, voyages down turbulent streams, where 
boats were sunk and upset with the drowning of men and 
loss of provisions and munitions. Still .Arnold kept on 
with the reckless daring and indomitable spirit so charac- 



THE SIEGE OF BOSTON 



107 



teristic of the man. With a sadly diminished force he came 
out at last in the open country, and after a short rest pushed 
on to the St. Lawrence. When he reached Point Levi, 
opposite Quebec, there was no Montgomery to meet him. 
Nevertheless he crossed the river, but his force was too small 







g;.nrjp 




&s*4i--"- 



CAPE DIAMOND AND THE 
CITADEL, QUEBEC. 

At 11 narrow point under Cape Dia- 
mond, Montgomery, who was leading 
the first division in the attack on Que- 
bec, was killed. 




to attack, and he withdrew. Meantime Burr, disguised as a 
priest, reached Montreal from Quebec, and Montgomery 
came down the river and joined Arnold, but only with some 
three hundred men. It was now December and a Canadian 
winter was upon them. Nevertheless, the united forces, to 
the number of a thousand, made a desperate attack upon the 



io8 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 




V L • '/ lit/: 



^v- 



TABLET ON THE ROCKS OF CAPE DIA- 
MOND BEARING THE INSCRIPTION 
"MONTGOMERY FELL, DEC R 31, 1775." 



city. Montgomery was killed in the assault, and his men 
repulsed. Arnold penetrated into the citv, was badly 
wounded, and forced to leave the field. Carleton, enabled 
by the defeat of Montgomery to concentrate his defence, 
forced Morgan, who had succeeded to the command after 
some desperate fighting in the streets, to surrender. This 
was really the end of the attempt on Canada, despite the 
fact that Arnold, with only five hundred men, held Carle- 
ton besieged in Quebec all winter. 15ut although new 



THE SIEGE OF BOSTON 



109 



generals came, and in the spring Washington at great risk 
detached reinforcements from his own army to aid the men 
in the north, on the breaking up of the ice in the river the 
Americans were compelled to withdraw from Quebec and 
later from Montreal. The attempt had failed, the north 
and the valley of the St. Lawrence remained open to Eng- 
land, and Canada was lost to the Americans. It was a 
well-conceived, boldly planned expedition, defeated by a 
series of unforeseen obstacles here, and a little 
delay there ; but its failure was very fruitful of 
consequences, both near and remote, 
just as its success would have been in 
another direction. 

Planning and carrying 
on bold schemes, like this 
asfainst Canada, was far j 
more to Washington's taste 
than the grinding, harass- /, 

ing work of slowly or- *^: ; 

ganizing an army, and 
without p r o p e r mk 

material pressing 
siege- operations. 
Still he kept every- 
thing well in hand. 
He chafed under 
the delays of the 
work at Boston ; 
he knew that at 
this juncture time 
helped England, 
and he wanted to 




3S SKSS88SBB 



THE MONUMENT TO MONTGOMERY, ST. PAUL'S 
CHURCH, NEW YORK CITY. 



Erected by the order of Congress, January 25, i??6> 



no THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

make the fullest use of the first energy of the popular en- 
thusiasm. Early in September he proposed an attack on 
Boston by boats and along Roxbury Neck, antl a little 
later another of similar character. In both eases his coun- 
cil of officers went against him, and he had not reached that 
point of discipline where he could afford to disregard them 
and follow his own opinion alone, as he so often did after- 
ward. 

Councils of officers, however, were not his only trouble 
or hindrance. Congress wanted speed; while his officers 
thought him rash, Congress thought him slow, and de- 
manded the impossible. They wondered why he did not 
at once secure the harbor without ships, and urged him to 
set up batteries and open on the town when he had neither 
suL-e-o-uns nor powder. Congress had to be managed, and 
so did the Provincial Congresses, each unreasonable in its 
own way, and from them, moreover, he was compelled to 
procure money and supplies and men. With infinite tact 
and patience he succeeded with them all. Enlistments ex- 
pired, and he was obliged to lose his old army and replace it 
with a new one — not a pleasant or easy undertaking in the 
presence of the enemy and in the midst of a New England 
winter. But it was done. Privateers began to appear, and 
rendered great service by their attacks on the enemy's com- 
merce. The\- brought in many valuable prizes, and Wash- 
ington had to be a naval department, and, in a measure, an 
admiralty court. Again the work was done. Cage treated) 
American prisoners badly. With dignity, firmness, and a 
good deal of stern vigor, Washington brought him to 
terms and taught him a much-needed lesson both in hu- 
manity and manners. 

So the winter wore on. Unable to attack, and with no 




THE ATTACK ON QUEBEC. 



old, who led this part of the attack, was completely 



The Second Division, lender Arnold, attacking. Ar 

disabled by a musket-wound in the knee, and was obliged to leav. thej.eld. 



THE SIEGE OF BOSTON 113 

material for siege-operations, he could only hold the Brit- 
ish where they were and make their situation difficult by 
cutting off all supplies by land with his troops, and by 
water with his privateers. It was dreary work, and no real 
advance seemed to be made, until in February the well-di- 
rected efforts began to tell and light at last began to break. 
Powder by great diligence had been gathered from every 
corner, and the Americans now had it in sufficient quantity 
to justify attack. Henry Knox, sent to Ticonderoga, had 
brought thence on sledges over the snow the cannon cap- 
tured by Ethan Allen that memorable May morning. Thus 
supplied, Washington determined to move. His first plan 
was to cross the ice with his army and storm the city. This 
suited his temperament, and also was the shortest way, as 
well as the one which would be most destructive and ruin- 
ous to the enemy. Again, however, the officers protested. 
They prevented the crossing on the ice, but they could no 
longer hold back their chief. If he could not go across the 
ice, then he would go by land, but attack he would. On 
the evening of Monday, March 4th, under cover of a heavy 
bombardment, he marched a large body of troops to Dor- 
chester Heights, and began to throw up redoubts. All night 
long Washington rode up and down the lines encouraging 
his men and urging them to work. He knew them now, 
they had always believed in him, and under such leadership 
and with such men, the works grew rapidly. When morn- 
ing broke there was, as on June 1 7th, great stir and excite- 
ment in Boston, and it was plain that the British meant to 
come out and attack. Washington's spirits rose at the 
prospect. He had had enough of siege-work, and was 
eager to fight. Meantime his men worked on hard and 
fast. The British troops made ready, but a gale came up 



ii4 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

and tney could not cross the bay. The next day there was 
a storm and heavy rain. The next day it was too late ; the 
works were too strong to be attempted successfully. Then 
the Ticonderoga guns began to send shot and shell into 
Boston, and parleys were opened. Howe, through the 
selectmen, promised to evacuate if not molested, but if at- 
tacked declared that he would burn the town. Washing- 
ton assented to this proposition, hut still Howe delayed, 
and Washington, not fond of delays or uncertainties, ad- 
vanced his works. The hint was enough, and on March 
i ;th, amid disorder and pillage, leaving cannon and much 
rise behind, eleven thousand British troops with about a 
thousand Boston Tories went on board the fleet, while 
Washington marched in at the other end of the town. The 
fleet lingered at the entrance to the harbor, closely watched 
by Washington, for a few days, and then sailed away to 
Halifax. 

The victory was won. Boston was in the hands of the 
Americans, and so remained. Except for raids here and 
there, and an attack on Newport, the war in New England 
was over, and those colonies, the richest and most populous, 
with their long coast-line and ample harbors, were set free 
to give all their strength to the general cause without being 
held back or distracted by lighting for their own firesides. 
To have driven the British from New England and from 
her capital city in this complete and rapid fashion, was not 
only a victory, but an achievement of immense importance 
toward the ultimate success of the Revolution. 

It was, moreover, in a purely military way, a very re- 
markable leat of arms. We cannot improve on Washing- 
ton's own statement, simple, concise, and sufficient as his 
statements always are. "To maintain," he said, "a post 



THE SIEGE OF BOSTON 115 

within musket-shot of the enemy for six months together 
without powder, and at the same time to disband one army 
and recruit another within that distance of twenty odd 
British regiments is more, probably, than was ever at- 
tempted." It was in truth a daring attempt, and the suc- 
cess was extraordinary. The beginning came from the 
armed people of the colonies. The final victory was won 
by the genius of Washington, whom the people had the 
wisdom to obey and the sense and strength to follow. 

The American: outnumbered the British, but not more 
than in the proportion of three to two, and this was little 
enough, as they had to hold the outer and besieging line. 
They were inferior to their opponents in discipline, equip- 
ment, organization, experience, and, worst of all, they had 
no sea-power whatever. All English soldiers were brave, 
and there could be no question about the unflinching cour- 
age of the men who had stormed the works at Bunker Hill. 
How was it then that with all the odds in their favor, when 
they should have broken the American lines and defeated 
the American army again and again, how was it that they 
were taken in an iron grip, held fast all winter, reduced to 
great straits, and finally driven ignominiously from the town 
they held by the army and the general they despised ? The 
answer is really simple, difficult as the question seems on 
the face. The American troops were of just as good fight- 
ing quality as the British, and they were led by a great 
soldier, one of the great soldiers, as events showed, of the 
century. The British were commanded by some phvsically 
brave gentlemen of good family and slender intellect. 
Such men as these had no chance against a general like 
Washington so long as he had men who would fight and 
enough gunpowder for his cannon and muskets. He 



u6 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

closed in on them, using to the utmost his inferior re- 
sources, and finally had them in so tight a grip that there 
was nothing for them hut flight or a bloody defeat in the 
streets of a burning town. It was neither by accident nor 
l>\- cowardice that the British were beaten out of Boston ; 
it was by the military capacity of one man triumphing 
over extraordinary difficulties of his own and helped by 
unusual stupidity and incompetence on the part of his 
enemy whom he accurately estimated. 

How was it, to go a step farther, that such men as 
Gage and Clinton and Howe were sent out to conquer men 
of their own race, risen in arms, and led by George Wash- 
ington ? For the same reason that the British soldiers were 
marched up the slopes of Bunker Hill as if they were go- 
ing on a holiday parade. It was because England's Minis- 
ters and people knew nothing of the Americans, wanted to 
know nothing, despised them, thought them cowards, and 
never dreamed for one moment that they could produce a 
great general. There was absolutely no reason in the 
nature of things why the Americans should not be able to 
light and bring forth great commanders. As a matter of 
fact they did both, but as they were no longer native Eng- 
lishmen, England believed they could do neither. Bunker 
Hill threw some light on the first theory ; George Wash- 
ington riding into Boston in the wake of a living British 
army, illuminated the second. England learned nothing 
from either event, except that coercion would require larger 
forces than she had anticipated ; still less did she suspect 
that the men who could write the State papersof Congress 
could also be diplomatists and find powerful allies. She 
was about to win some military successes, as was to be ex- 
pected with the odds so largely in her favor. Encouraged 



THE SIEGE OF BOSTON 117 

by them, she paid no real heed either to Bunker Hill or 
Boston, and neither revised her estimate of the American 
soldier, nor paid much attention to his chief. Yet both 
events were of inestimable importance, for one showed the 
fighting quality of the American people, the other the 
military capacity and moral force of Washington, and it was 
by the fighting of the American soldier and the ability and 
indomitable courage of Washington that the American 
Revolution came to victory. Much else contributed to 
that victory, but without Washington and the soldiers who 
followed him, it would have been impossible. 



~H-iK 



-v** 5x->- 



CHAPTER VI 

THE SPREAD OF REVOLUTION 

It would have been a very obvious part of good mili- 
tary judgment for the British commanders to endeavor to 
force Washington away from Boston by assailing his com- 
munications to the west and south, or by attacks in other 
important quarters, which would have demanded relief 
from the main army. Military judgment, however, was 
not a quality for which the British generals in Boston were 
conspicuous. Still less is it conceivable that any of them 
should have taken a broad view of the whole military situ- 
ation and sought to compel Washington to raise the siege 
by a movement in another direction, as Scipio, to take a 
proverbial example, forced Hannibal out of Italy by the 
invasion of Africa. This none the less was one intelligent 
course to pursue. Another equally sensible would have 
been to concentrate the war at Boston, and by avoiding col- 
lision- and cultivating good relations with the people of 
the other colonies endeavor to separate Massachusetts from 
the rest of the continent. The British took neither course, 
and so lost the advantages oi both. They did enough to 
alarm and excite the other colonies and to make them feel 
that the cause of Massachusetts was their own, and yet they 
did not do anything sufficiently effective even to distract 
Washington's attention, much less loosen his iron grip on 

l)osti >n. 

118 



THE SPREAD OF REVOLUTION 121 

In October, 1775, Captain Mowatt appeared off Fal- 
mouth, in Maine, where the city of Portland now stands, 
opened fire and destroyed the little town by a heavy bom- 
bardment. It was an absolutely useless performance ; led 
to nothing', and was hurtful to the British cause. Wash- 
ington at once made preparations to defend Portsmouth, 
thinking that the New Hampshire town would be the next 
victim, but the British had no plan, not enough even to 
make their raids continuous and effective. They stopped 
with the burning of Falmouth, which was sufficient to alarm 
every coast-town in New England, and make the people 
believe that their only hope of saving their homes was in a 
desperate warfare ; and which at the same time did not 
weaken the Americans in the least or force Washington 
to raise the siege of Boston. 

In explanation of the attack on Falmouth, it could at 
least be said that it was a New England town and be- 
longed to Massachusetts, and that all New England prac- 
tically was in arms. But even this could not be urged in 
defence of the British policy elsewhere. In the middle 
colonies, where the loyalists were strong and the people 
generally conservative, little was done to hurry on the Rev- 
olution. The English representatives, except Tryon, who 
was active and intriguing in New York, behaved, on the 
whole, with sense and moderation, and did nothing to pre- 
cipitate the appeal to arms. 

In the South the case was widely different. The Brit- 
ish governors there, one after the other, became embroiled 
with the people at the earliest moment ; then, without be- 
ing in the least personal danger, fled to a man-of-war, and 
wound up by making some petty and ineffective attack 
which could have no result but irritation. Thus Lord 



122 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



Dunmore behaved in Virginia. It is true that that great 
colony was like New England, almost a unit in the policy 
of resistance to England, yet she had committed no overt 
aet herself, and good sense would seem to have dictated 
every effort to postpone the appeal to force. Lord Dun- 
more, however, after much arguing and proclaiming, be- 
took himself to a man-of-war. There was nothing san- 
p-uinarv or murderous about the American Revolution, for 
it was waged on a principle and not in revenge for wrongs; 
but, nevertheless, Lord Dunmore apparently thought his 
precious life was in peril. Having ensconced himself 
safely in the war-ship, with a delightful absence of humor 
he summoned the assembly to meet him at the seat of 
government, an invitation not accepted by the Burgesses. 
Then he dropped down the river, was joined by some ad- 
ditional war-ships, made an attack on the village of Hamp- 
ton, and was repulsed. Foiled there, he took position in 
tin- rear of Norfolk, commanding the bridge, and drove 
off some militia. The Virginians, now thoroughly aroused, 
called out some troops, a sharp action ensued, and the 
British forces were very creditably beaten. Still unsat- 
isfied, Lord Dunmore proceeded to bombard and destroy 
Norfolk, the largest and most important town in the col- 
ony. This was his last exploit, but he had done a good 
deal. His flight had cleared the way for an independent 
provincial government. His attack on Hampton and the 
fighl at the bridge had brought war into Virginia, and her 
people, brave, hardy, and very ready to light, had quickly 
crossed tin- Rubicon and committed themselves to revolu- 
tion. Tin- burning of Norfolk, wanton as it was, added to 
the political resistance a keen sense of wrong, and a desire 
for vengeance which were not present before. The de- 



THE SPREAD OF REVOLUTION 123 

struction of the Virginia seaport also had the effect of ex- 
citing and alarming the whole Southern seaboard, and 
brought no advantage whatever to the cause of England. 
Altogether, it seems that Lord Dunmore's policy, if he was 
capable of having one, was to spread the Revolution as fast, 
and cement the union of all the colonies as strongly, as 
possible. 

Unlike Virginia, the Carolinas were sharply divided in 
regard to the differences with the mother-country. In 
North Carolina there was a strong loyalist party, the bulk 
of which numerically was formed of Highlanders who had 
come to America since 1 745, and conspicuous among 
whom were the famous Flora Macdonald and her husband. 
Martin, the Governor there, went through the customary 
performances of British governors. He stirred up one part 
of the community against the other, set a civil war on 
foot in the colony, betook himself to a man-of-war, and 
cried out for help from England. The usual result fol- 
lowed. The loyalists attacked the Minute Men under Cas- 
well, who had posted themselves at a bridge from which 
they had taken the planks. The Highlanders gallantly 
attempted to cross on the beams but were beaten back, for 
the claymore was no match for the rifle. In this way the 
colony was alienated from the Crown, fighting was started, 
the party of revolution and resistance was left with a clear 
field and a free hand as the only positive force, to set up 
an independent government and seize all authority. 

In South Carolina there was a similar division between 
the people and planters of the seaboard, who were on the 
American side, and the herdsmen and small farmers of the 
interior, many of whom inclined strongly to the Crown. 
This division, Lord William Campbell the Governor— 



124 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

made such merely because he was one of a noble family — 
did all in his power to foment. British agents were sent 
into the western counties to rouse the inhabitants, and not 
content with this, these same agents began to intrigue with 
the Indians. If any one thing was more calculated than all 
cist- to make the rupture with the mother-country hopeless, 
it was the idea of letting loose the Indians upon the frontier. 
To incite this savage warfare was to drive the Americans to 
desperation and to convert even loyalists to the cause of 
resistance and hatred against England. Vet the English 
Ministry resorted to this inhuman scheme, and in the 
North their Indian allies fought for them diligently and 
damaged their cause irreparably. The Indian intriguing 
in South Carolina did not, at this time, come to much, but 
Lord William Campbell apparently felt that he had done 
enough. lie had stirred up strife, incited the patriots to 
begin the work of fortifying Charleston Harbor, and then 
he departed to the customary man-of-war, leaving his oppo- 
nents to take control of the government while he urged aid 
from England, and explained what cowards and poor creat- 
ures generally the Americans were from whom he had run 
away. 

Georgia was weak, the youngest of all the colonies, and 
her Governor, Sir James Wright, was prudent and concilia- 
tory. So the colony kept quiet, sent no delegates to the 
first, and only one, who was locally chosen, to the second 
Congress. The condition of Georgia was a lesson as to 
the true policy of England had her Ministry understood 
how to divide the colonies one from another. Hut they 
seemed to think that the way to hold the colonies to Eng- 
land and to prevent their union, was to make a show of 
force everywhere. Such stupidity, as Dr. Johnson said, 



THE SPREAD OF REVOLUTION 125 

does not seem in nature, but that it existed is none the 
less certain. So in due course, dulness being in full con- 
trol in London, a small squadron appeared off Savannah. 
Immediately the people who had been holding back from 
revolution rose in arms. Sir James Wright was arrested, 
and the other officers of the Crown lied, or were made 
prisoners. Three weeks later the Governor escaped, took 
refuge in the conventional manner on a convenient man-of- 
war, and then announced that the people were under the 
control of the Carolinas and could only be subdued by 
force. Thus Georgia, menaced by England and deserted 
by her Governor, passed over to independence and organ- 
ized a government of her own, when she might have been 
kept at least neutral, owing to her position, her weakness, 
and her exposed frontier. 

The actions of their governors were sufficient to alienate 
the Southern colonies and push on the movement toward 
independence, but a far more decisive step was taken by 
the English Government itself. In October, 1775, the 
King decided that the South, which had thus far done 
nothing but sympathize with the North and sustain Massa- 
chusetts in Congress, must be attacked and brought by 
force into a proper frame of mind. The King therefore 
planned an expedition against the Southern colonies in 
October and decided that Clinton should have the com- 
mand. The manner in which this affair was managed is 
an illustration of the incapacity of English administration, 
which so recently, under Pitt, had sustained Frederick of 
Prussia, and conquered North America from the French. 
Not until February did the expedition under Admiral 
Parker sail with the fleet and transports from Cork. Not 
until May did Clinton receive his instructions, and it was 



126 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

the third of that month when the fleet, much scattered, 
finally entered Cape Fear River. The conduct of the ex- 
pedition conformed with its organization, and differences 
between the general and the admiral began at once. Clin- 
ton wanted to go to the Chesapeake, while Lord William 
Campbell urged an attack on Charleston. The latter's 
council prevailed, and after Cornwallis had landed, de- 
stroyed a plantation, and roused the people of North 
Carolina by a futile raid, the fleet departed for the south. 

It was the first day of June when news was brought to 
Charleston that a fleet of forty or fifty sail were some twenty 
miles north of the bar. The tidings were grave indeed, but 
South Carolina had improved the time since Lord William 
Campbell's departure under the bold and vigorous leader- 
ship of John Rutledge, who had been chosen President of 
the colony. Work had been pushed vigorously on the de- 
fences, and especially at Sullivan's Island, where a fort of 
palmetto-wood was built and manned under the direction 
and command of William Moultrie. Continental troops 
arrived from the North. First came General Armstrong 
of Pennsylvania, then two North Carolina regiments, and 
then the best regiment of Virginia. Also came General 
Charles Lee, to whom great deference was paid on account 
of his rank in the Continental Army, and still more be- 
cause he was an Englishman. As usual, however, Lee did 
no good, and if his advice had been followed he would 
have done much harm. He made an early visit to Sulli- 
van's Island, pronounced the fort useless, and advised its 
abandonment. Moultrie, a very quiet man of iew words, 
replied that he thought he could hold the fort, which was 
all he ever said apparently to any of the prophets of evil 
who visited him. At all events, sustained by Rutledge, he 



THE SPREAD OF REVOLUTION 



127 




stayed quietly and silently where he was, strengthening the 
fort and making ready for an attack. Lee, who took the 
British view that British sol- 
diers were invincible, then pro- 
ceeded to do everything in his 
power to make them so, and 
being unable to induce Rut- 
ledge to order the abandon- 
ment of the island, he with- 
drew some of the troops and 
then devoted himself to urging 
Moultrie to build a bridge to 
retreat over. Moultrie, how- 
ever, like many other brave 
men, had apparently a simple 
and straightforward mind. He 
had come to light, not retreat, 
and he went on building his fort and paid little attention 
to the matter of the bridge. 

But although Lee was doing all the damage he could 
by interfering with Moultrie, the government of the colony 
gave the latter hearty backing and supported him by well- 
arranged defences. Fortunately, there was an abundance 
of men to draw upon — all the South Carolina militia, the 
continental troops, and the regiments from North Carolina 
and Virginia. Armstrong, who acted cordially with Moul- 
trie, was at Hadrell's Point with some fifteen hundred men, 
while Thomson, of Orangeburg, with nearly a thousand 
riflemen from the Carolinas, was sent to the island to sup- 
port the garrison. In addition to this, Gadsden, with the 
first Carolina regiment, occupied Fort Johnson, and there 
were about two thousand more men in the city. Charles- 



GENERAL WILLIAM MOULTRIE. 

From tin fainting by John Trumbull, rjgi. 



12* 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



ton itself had also been diligently and rapidly fortified 
when the Government heard of the coming ol the British ; 
warehouses bad been taken down and batteries and works 
established along the water-front. The 
skill, thoroughness, and intelligence shown 
in the preparations of South Carolina were 
wholly admirable, and to them was largely 
due the victory which was won. 

Zealously, however, as these prepara- 
tions had been made, they were in a large 
measure completed and per- 
fected only after the news of 
the coming of the British fleet 
and army had been received. 
It seems almost incredible 
when time was so vital to suc- 
cess that the English should 
have given to their opponents 
such ample opportunity to 
make ready. But so it was. 
It was the ist of June when 
Parker came off the bar with his ships, and a month elapsed 
before he attacked. Such inefficiency is not easily under- 
stood ; nor is it clear why the English should have been 
so delayed. They seem indeed simply to have wasted 
their time. Not until June 7th did Clinton send on shore 
his proclamation denouncing the rebels. On the 9th he be- 
gan i<> disembark his men on Long Island, having been 
told that there was a practicable ford between that place 
and Sullivan's Island where the fort stood, a piece of in- 
formation which he did not even take the trouble to verify. 
On the 10th the British came over the bar with thirty or 




OLD ST. MICHAEL'S CHURCH 

CHARLESTON, S. C. 

The Steeple Servt >- the Mariners 

of tiir Tim,. 



THE SPREAD OF REVOLUTION 129 

forty vessels, including the transports. What they did dur- 
ing the ensuing week is not clear. Clinton completed the 
landing of his troops, more than three thousand in num- 
ber, on the island, which was a naked sand-bar, where the 
men were scorched by the sun, bitten by mosquitoes, forced 
to drink bad water, and suffered from lack of provisions. 
Having comfortably established his army in this desirable 
spot, he then thoughtfully looked for the practicable ford, 
found there was none, and announced the interesting dis- 
covery to Sir Peter Parker. That excellent seaman was 
not apparently disturbed. Indeed, his interest in Clinton 
seems to have been of the slightest. He exercised his 
sailors and marines in the movements for entering a fort, 
and felt sure of an easy victory, for he despised the 
Americans, and was confident that he could get on per- 
fectly well without Clinton. In this view he was encour- 
aged by letters from the Governor of East Florida, who 
assured him that South Carolina was really loyal, and that 
the fort would yield at once, while he was still further 
cheered by the arrival of the Experiment, a fifty-gun ship. 
Thus strengthened, and with a fair wind, he at last bore 
down toward the fort on June 28th. 

Moultrie was entirely ready. He sent Thomson with 
the riflemen down toward the east to watch Clinton on 
Long Island and to prevent his crossing, while with four 
hundred and fifty men he prepared to defend the fort him- 
self. The attack began about ten o'clock in the morning. 
First two vessels shelled the fort, then four more (including 
the Bristol and Experiment, fifty-gun ships) anchored with- 
in four hundred yards of the fort and opened a heavy fire. 
The palmetto logs stood the shots admirably, for the balls 
sank into the soft wood, which neither broke nor splint- 



130 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

ered. To counterbalance this good fortune, Moultrie, un- 
luckily, had very little powder and received only a small 
additional supply later in the day, so that he was obliged to 
husband his resources, and kept up a slow, although steady, 
fire. It was, however, well aimed and very destructive. 
The Bristol suffered severely; her cables were cut, and as 
she swung to the tide the Americans raked her. Three 
fresh ships which came up ran aground. The men in the 
fort suffered but little, and when the flag was shot away, 
Sergeant Jasper sprang to the parapet in the midst of the 
shut and shell and replaced it on a halberd. So the day 
>lo\\ly passed. The British kept up a heavy cannonade, 
while the Americans replied by a slow and deadly fire, 
striking the ships with almost every shot. Meantime the 
army on Long Island assisted as spectators. Clinton looked 
at the place where the ford should have been and decided 
not to cross. lie then put some of his men in boats, but 
on examining Thomson and his riflemen, perhaps with 
memories of Bunker Hill floating in his mind, concluded 
that to attempt a landing would be a mere waste of life. 
So he stayed on the sand-bank and sweltered, and watched 
the ships. At last the long hot day drew to a close and 
Admiral Parker, having suffered severely, and made no 
impression whatever on the fort, slipped his cables and 
dropped down to his old anchorage. 

When morning came, the results of the fighting were 
apparent. The Acta on was aground, and was burned to 
the water's vd^v. The Bristol had lost two masts, and was 
practically a wreck. The Experiment was little better. 
Altogether, the British lost two hundred and five men 
killed and wounded, and one man-of-war. The Americans 
lost eleven nun killed, and had twenty-six wounded. It 



THE SPREAD OF REVOLUTION 133 

was a very well-fought action, and the honor of the day 
belonged to Moultrie, whose calm courage and excellent 
dispositions enabled him to hold the foil and beat off the 
enemy. Much was also due to the admirable arrangements 
made by the South Carolinians, under the lead of Rutledge 
who had every important point well-covered and strongly 
held. 

On the side of the British, to the long and injurious 
delays was added fatal blundering when they finally went 



FORT MOULTRIE^ AT THE PRESENT DAY. 
On the siteoj Fort Sullivan. 

into action. Clinton's men were stupidly imprisoned on 
Long Island, and rendered utterly useless. Parker, in- 
stead of running the fort and attacking the city, which 
from a naval point of view was the one thing to do, for 
the capture or destruction of the city would have rendered 
all outposts untenable, anchored in front of the fort within 
easy range, and tried to pound it down. It was so well 
built that it resisted his cannonade, and all the advantage 



i 3 4 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

was with Moultrie and his men, who with perfect coolness 
and steady aim cut the men-of-war to pieces, and would 
have done much more execution if they had been well 
supplied with powder. It was the same at Charleston as 
elsewhere. Parker believed that the Americans could not, 
and would not, fight, hut would run away as soon as he 
laid his ships alongside and began to lire. lie never 
stopped to think that men who drew their blood from Eng- 
land, from the Scotch-Irish, and from the Huguenots, came 
of lighting stocks, and that the mere fact that they lived 
in America and not in Great Britain did not necessarily 
alter their courage or capacity. So he gave them ample 
time to make ready, and then, on the theory that they 
would run like sheep, he put his ships up as targets at close 
range and imagined that he would thus take the fort. 
NO braver people lived than the South Carolinians. They 
stood their ground, kept the fort, and fought all day 
stripped to the waist under the burning sun. After ten 
hours Parker found his ships terribly cut up and the fort 
practically intact. Whether during the night he reflected 
on what had happened, and saw that his perfect contempt 
for the Americans was the cause of his defeat, no one now 
can saw Certain it is, however, that after exchanging 
recriminations with Clinton he gave up any idea of further 
attack. Clinton and his regiments got off in about three 
weeks for New York, and Parker, as soon as he was able, 
departed with his fleel to relit. 

The British expedition, politically speaking, ought never 
to have been sent at all, for its coming simply completed 
the alienation of the Southern colonies. From a military 
point of view, it was utterly mismanaged from beginning 
to end, and the victory won by South Carolina, led by 



THE SPREAD OF REVOLUTION 135 

Moultrie and his men, was of immense importance. It 
consolidated the South and at the same time set them free 
for three years from British invasion, thus enabling them 
to give their aid when it was needed in the middle colonics. 
When war again came upon them the British had been so 
far checked that the North was able to come to the help 
of the South. Washington's victory at Boston and the re- 
pulse of the British fleet at Charleston, by relieving New- 
England and the South, enabled the Americans to con- 
centrate in the middle colonies at the darkest time when 
the fate of the revolution was in suspense. The failure of 
England to hold her position in Massachusetts, or to main- 
tain her invasion of the South, was most disastrous to her 
cause. Either by political management or force of arms, 
she should have separated these regions from the great 
central provinces. She failed in both directions, and only 
did enough to drive the colonies together and to encourage 
the Americans to light. 



A 



CHAPTER VII 

INDEPENDENCE 

FTER they had provided themselves with a General 
and an army, and the General had ridden away 
to Boston, Congress found themselves in a new 
position. They had come into existence to represent, in 
a united way, the views of the colonies in regard to the 
differences which had arisen with the mother-country, 
a duty they had performed most admirably. The State 
papers in which they had set forth their opinions and 
argued their ease were not only remarkable, but they 
had commanded respect and admiration even in England, 
and had attracted attention on the Continent of Europe. 
This was the precise business for which they had been 
chosen, and they had executed their commission with 
dignity and ability. They had elevated their cause in the 
eyes of all men, and had behaved with wisdom and pru- 
dence. But this work of theirs was an appeal to reason, and 
the weapons were debate and argument with which while 
they were trying to convince England of the justice of 
their demands, they had strengthened the opinions and 
sharpened the eonvietions of their own people. Thus had 
they stimulated the popular movement which had broughl 
Congress into existence, and thus did they quicken the 

march of events which bore them forward even in then 

136 



INDEPENDENCE 137 

own despite. While they resolved and argued and drafted 
addresses and petitions in Philadelphia, other Americans 
fought at Concord and Bunker Hill and Ticonderoefa. 
While they discussed and debated, an army of their fellow- 
citizens gathered around Boston and held a British army 
besieged. Thus was the responsibility of action forced 
upon them. They could not escape it. They had them- 
selves helped to create the situation which made the battles 
in Massachusetts the battles of all the colonies alike. So 
they proceeded to adopt the army, make generals, and 
borrow money. In other words, under the pressure of 
events, these men who had assembled merely to consult and 
resolve and petition, suddenly became a law-making and 
executive government. For the first of these functions, 
thanks to the natural capacity of the race, they were suf- 
ficiently well adapted to meet the emergency. If they 
could pass resolutions, publish addresses, and put forth 
arguments, as they had done with signal ability, they 
were entirely capable of passing all the laws necessarv 
for a period of revolution. But when it came to the 
business of execution and administration, they were almost 
entirely helpless. That they had no authority was but the 
least of their difficulties, for authority they could and did 
assume. Far more serious was the fact that they had no 
assurance that anything they did or said would be heeded 
or obeyed, for they represented thirteen colonies, each 
one of which believed itself to be sovereign and on an 
equality with the Congress. They were obliged there- 
fore to trust solely to the force of circumstances and 
to public opinion for obedience to their decrees, and al- 
though this obedience came after a halting fashion under 
the pressure of war, it rested on very weak foundations. 



138 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

They had no frame of government whatever, no organiza- 
tion, no chief executive, no departments for the transaction 
of the public business. Yet they were compelled to carry on 
a war, and war depends but little on legislation and almost 
wholly on executive action. No legislative body is really 
lit for executive work ; and able, wise, and patriotic as the 
members of our first Congress were, they could not over- 
come this fatal defect. They chose committees as a matter 
of course, and this mitigated the inherent evils of the 
sii nation, but was very far from removing them. They 
were still a legislative body trying to do in various direc- 
tions work which only a single man could properly under- 
take. Here then was the great weakness of the American 
cause, and yet it could not be avoided. A Congress with- 
out power and forced to operate through thirteen distinct 
sovereignties was the only executive government with 
which the American Revolution began, and it never be- 
came much better, although some improvements were 
effected. At the outset, moreover, the Congress was not 
clear as to just what it meant to do. They were engaged 
in actual and flagrant war with England, and at the same 
time were arguing and reasoning with the mother-country 
and trying to come to terms of peaceful settlement with 
her. They despatched George Washington to beleaguer 
a British army, and at the same time clung to their alle- 
giance to the British Crown. When events forced them to 
action tinder these conditions, tin- feebleness of Congress 
as an executive government soon became painfully ap- 
p.c ent. 

They senl Washington off with nothing but his com- 
mission, and hoped that they could in one campaign bring 
about a treaty with Engfland. The New York Provincial 



INDEPENDENCE 1 39 

Congress came forward with a plan of peaceful reconcilia- 
tion, which was all very well, if England had been willing 
to listen to anything of that sort, and the Continental 
Congress still labored under the same delusion. Vet there 
were the hard facts of the situation continually knocking 
at the door and insisting on an answer. So, even while 
they were considering plans for peace, they were obliged 
to act. Money had to be obtained in some way, for 
schemes of reconciliation paid no bills, and they had 
adopted an army and made a general. How were they to 
get it? They had no authority to impose taxes. It is 
true that they could have assumed this as they did much 
other authority, but they had neither the power nor the 
machinery to collect taxes if they imposed them. The 
collection of taxes could not be assumed, for it was some- 
thing to be done by proper executive force, of which they 
were destitute. Thus pressed, they resorted to the easy 
and disastrous expedient of issuing continental bills of 
credit, merely pledging the colonies to redeem them, and 
without any provision for really raising money at all. 
Probably, this was the best that could be done, but it was 
a source of weakness and came near wrecking the Amer- 
ican cause. They also adopted a code for the government 
of the army ; authorized the invasion of Canada, and sent 
agents to the Indians to prevent their forming alliances 
with Great Britain. 

These things accomplished, Congress turned again to 
the business for which they had been chosen, the defence 
of the American position ; and on July 6th published a 
declaration of the reasons for taking up arms. This was 
done thoroughly well. They set forth the acts of hostility 
on the part of Great Britain, and showed that the Ministry 



Ho THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

were trying to subdue them by force, which the Ministry 
certainly would not have denied. They declared that they 
preferred armed resistance to the unconditional submission 
which England demanded, and at the same time they pro- 
tested that they were not fighting for "the desperate meas- 
ure of independence," but only to defend themselves from 
unprovoked attack. Their statement was plain and truth- 
ful, and they honestly represented the public reluctance to 
seek independence. It would have been well if England 
had heeded it, but, unluckily, England was committed to 
another policy and this was all too late. The declaration, 
as it stood, under existing conditions meant war, and they 
should have followed it up by straining every nerve in 
earnest preparation. Some of the members, like John 
Adams and Franklin, knew what it all meant well enough, 
but Congress would not so interpret it. Instead of ac- 
tively going to work to make an effective government and 
take all steps needful for the energetic prosecution of the 
war, they adopted a second petition to the King, which 
was drafted by Dickinson. The contradictions in which 
they were involved came out sharply even in this last effort 
of loyalty. They proposed a truce and a negotiation to 
the King, who had declined to recognize Congress at all, 
and the King was quite right in his refusal if he intended 
to fight, as lie undoubtedly did. Congress was union, and 
union was practical independence. I low then could the 
King treat with a body which by its very existence meant 
a new nation? Yet this was precisely what Congress 
asked as the nearest way to peace and reconciliation. 
1 here i <>uld be no result to such a measure as this, unless 
England was ready to yield, and if she was, the difficulty 
would settle itseli quickly and without argument. They 



INDEPENDENCE 141 

also adopted another address to the English people, a 
strong and even pathetic appeal to race feeling and com- 
munity of thought and speech, and, at the same time, they 
sent thanks to the Mayor and Aldermen of London for 
their sympathy. They intrusted the petition to the King 
to Richard Penn, and felt strong hopes of success, because 
of their concessions in regard to trade. They would not 
confess even to themselves that the differences with the 
mother-country had now reached the point where the ques- 
tion was the very simple one, whether the people of the 
colonies were to govern America or the English King 
and Parliament. There was no lack of men who under- 
stood all this perfectly, but they were not yet in control, 
perhaps were not ready to be, and Congress would not 
admit that the case was hopeless and that the stage had 
been reached where compromises were no longer possible. 
Even while they hoped and petitioned and reasoned, the 
relentless facts were upon them. Armies could not wait 
while eloquent pleadings and able arguments were passing 
slowly across the Atlantic. Washington wrote from Cam- 
bridge that the army was undisciplined and short in num- 
bers ; that there were too many officers, and not enough 
men ; that he needed at once tents, clothing, hospitals, 
engineers, arms of every kind, and above all gunpowder, 
and that he had no money. From Schuyler at Ticon- 
deroga came the same demands and the same report. Con- 
gress had to hear their letters, and could not avoid know- 
ing the facts. How were they to satisfy these wants, how 
deal with these harsh facts and yet not interfere with peti- 
tions to the King ? A question not easy to answer, for it is 
never easy to reconcile two conflicting policies, and still 
worse to try to carry both into effect. The result was that 



142 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

the army suffered because that was the only direction in 
which anything substantial could really be done, all peti- 
tioning having become by this time quite futile. It is true 
that Washington was authorized to have an army of twenty- 
two thousand men, but no means were given him to get 
them. Five thousand men were also authorized for Can- 
ada, and nothing was done toward getting them either. To 
make matters still worse, no enlistments were to be made 
for a time longer than that in which they could hear from 
the King, who was diligently gathering together fleets and 
armies to send against them. They organized a post-office, 
which was desirable, but not an engine of war ; they also 
organized a hospital service, which was very desirable, but 
not aggressive ; they issued more bills of credit, and de- 
cided that they should be apportioned according to popu- 
lation, and they failed to open their ports to other nations, 
their only resource for munitions of war, andrenewed their 
non-exportation agreements. Franklin, looking out on 
this welter of contradictions and confusions, and seeing 
very plainly the facts in the case, offered a plan for a con- 
federate government so as to provide machinery for what 
they were trying to do. It was a wise and statesmanlike 
measure in principle, and was laid aside. John Adams 
wrote indignant letters declaring that they should be at 
work founding and defending an empire instead of argu- 
ing and wailing. These letters were intercepted and pub- 
lished by the party of the Crown in order to break down 
Adams and the radicals, which shows, in a Hash of light, 
what public opinion was believed to be at that moment 
in the great middle colonies. Whether the loyalists 
gauged public opinion correctly or not, Congress agreed 
with tlirin .mil allowed everything to drift. Yet, at the 



IXDEPEXDEXCE 143 

same time, they decisively rejected Lord North's pro- 
posals. They would not accept the British advances or 
even consider them, the King would not deal with them, 
and yet with all this staring them in the face they still 
declined to sustain the army or frame a government. 
They could not hear the idea of separation, the breaking 
of the bonds of race and kindred, the overthrow of all 
habits and customs to which human nature clings so tena- 
ciously. It was all very natural, but it was very bad for 
the American Revolution, and caused many disasters by 
keeping us unprepared as long as possible, and also by 
fostering the belief in the minds of the people that all 
would yet come right and go on as before. Men are slow 
to understand the presence of a new force and the coming 
of a great change. They are still slower to admit it when 
they do know it, but meantime the movement goes on and 
in due time takes its revenge for a failure to recognize it. 

Thus Congress, faithfully reflecting the wishes and the 
doubts of a majority of the people, failed to do anything, 
where alone they could have been effective, tried nobly 
and manfully to do something where nothing could be 
done, hesitated on the brink of the inevitable, and finally 
adjourned on August 1st leaving the country for the mo- 
ment without any central government whatever. At the 
same time they left Washington with his army and the 
Canadian expedition and the siege of Boston on his hands, 
and nothing to turn to for support but the governments 
of the different colonies. Congress is not to be blamed 
too severely for all this, for they merely reflected the hesi- 
tation and haltings of a time when all was doubt. But 
their failure to act and their adjournment without leaving 
any executive officer to represent them, bring out, in strong 



H4 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

relief, the difficulties which beset Washington, who with 
his army alone represented the American Revolution and 
the popular force, as he was destined to do on many other 
occasions and in much darker hours. It is well also to 
note that despite the inaction and departure of Congress 
the w<»rk of war was done in some fashion, the siege 
of Boston pushed, and the expedition to Canada set in 
motion. 

The weeks of adjournment went by. Congress should 
have reassembled on September 5th, but a week elapsed 
before enough members were present to do business, an 
instance of unpunctualitv which was ominous in a body 
that had undertaken executive functions. Helplessness 
was still supreme. John Adams, of the intercepted letters, 
was cut in the street by the excellent and patriotic Dickin- 
son, to whom he had referred in those letters as a "pid- 
dling genius." All the New England members, indeed, 
were regarded with suspicion by the great central colonies, 
but were sustained by the South. Hence much ill-feeliner 
and animosity became apparent between the two parties, 
but the party with hope for peace was still in the ascend- 
ant, still holding a majority which was weakening every 
day and vet shrinking from the inevitable, after the fashion 
of human nature under such trying conditions. Out of 
such a situation little positive action could come, and the 
time was wasted in much vain debate. Would they send 
an expedition to Detroit ? A wise scheme but, after much 
talk, rejected. England was prohibiting our fisheries and 
rest riding the trade of Southern colonies. It was obvious 
that we should open our ports to the world. Nothing was 
done. Then came long discussions about expeditions, the 
boundary line of Pennsylvania, the rights of Connecticut 



INDEPENDENCE 145 

in Wyoming, and the enlistment of negroes, this last de- 
cided in the affirmative despite Southern remonstrance. 
Meantime war was in progress as well as debate, and war 
could not be postponed. Washington, observing that Eng- 
land was replying to Bunker Hill with increased arma- 
ments and paying no heed to petitions, had no doubt as 
to the realities of the situation. Independence was the 
only thing possible now that fighting had begun, and to 
fail to say what was meant was simply ruinous. Moreover, 
his army was about to disappear, for terms of enlistment had 
expired, and he had no means to get a new one. Without 
an army a siege of Boston was plainly impossible, and so 
there came a letter to Congress from their commander-in- 
chief which roused the members from their debates. Here 
was a voice to which they must listen, and a condition of 
affairs which they must faee. They accordingly appointed 
a committee, consisting of Franklin, Lynch, and Harrison, 
to visit the camp. Three men, when one of them was 
Franklin, made a better executive than the country had 
yet had, and the result was soon apparent. On October 
15th the committee reached the camp, where Franklin, 
who understood the facts, had no difficulty in arranging 
matters with Washington. A scheme was agreed upon 
for a new army of twenty-three thousand men, and power 
given the general to enlist them. The Congress gave its 
assent, the four New England colonies were to furnish the 
men and the money, and Washington was to get the work 
done. Meantime the Congress itself was going on with its 
debates and hesitations. One day Rhode Island demanded 
a navy, and after much struggle vessels were authorized. 
Then came the cold fit again. Nothing must be done to 
irritate England or spoil the chances of the petition, so 



146 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

no prize courts were established, no ports were opened, 
and Xew Hampshire, when everything depended upon 
New England, was kept waiting a month for authority to 
establish an independent government. 

Vet under all the doubtings and delays the forces 
were moving forward. The pressure for decisive action 
increased steadily, the logic of independence became con- 
stantly more relentless, more unavoidable. Washington 
and the army were clearly for independence, and they were 
now a power no longer to be disregarded. One colony 
after another was setting up a government for itself, and 
as each one became independent, the absurdity of the cen- 
tral government holding back while each of the several 
parts moved forward was strongly manifested. New 
England had broken away entirely. The Southern col- 
onies, led by Virginia and mismanaged by their governors, 
were going rapidly in the same direction. The resistance 
still came from the middle colonies, naturally more con- 
servative, restrained, except in Xew York, by loyal gov- 
ernors, who, like William Franklin in Xew Jersey, were at 
once politic and judicious. Pennsylvania, clinging to her 
mild proprietary government of Quakers and Germans, 
held back more resolutely than any other and sustained 
John Dickinson in his policy of inaction. 

But the party of delay constantly grew weaker. The 
news from England was an argument for independence 
that could not well be met. Richard Penn, the bearer of 
the olive-branch, could not even present his petition, for 
the King would not see him. Chatham and Camden 
might oppose, other Englishmen, studying the accounts 
ol Bunker Mill, might doubt, but the King had no mis- 
givings. George meant to be a king, and the idea of 



INDEPENDENCE 149 

resistance to his wishes was intolerable to him. It was 
something to be crushed, not reasoned with. So he issued 
a proclamation declaring the Americans rebels and trait- 
ors, who were to be put down and punished. To carry 
out his plans, ships, expeditions, and armaments were 
prepared, and the King, in order to get men, sent his 
agents over Europe to buy soldiers from the wretched 
German princelings who lived by selling their subjects, 
or from anyone else who was ready to traffic in flesh and 
blood. It was not a pretty transaction nor over-creditable 
to a great fighting people like the English, but it unques- 
tionably meant business. It was not easy to go on arguing 
for reconciliation when the King shut the door on the 
petitioners and denounced them as traitors, while he busied 
himself in hiring mercenaries to put them down by force. 
Under these conditions the friends of Independence urged 
their cause more boldly, and the majority turned to their 
side, but now they waited until they could obtain una- 
nimity, which was in truth something worth getting. The 
change in the opinion of Congress was shown plainly by 
the change in their measures. They applauded the vic- 
tories of Montgomery, they took steps to import arms and 
gunpowder, and to export provisions to pay for them ; 
they adopted a code for the navy, approved Washington's 
capture of vessels, and issued three million dollars in bills 
of credit. Most important of all, they appointed a com- 
mittee on Foreign Relations, the first step tow r ard getting 
alliances and aid from other nations. These were genuine 
war measures, and it was a great advance for Congress to 
have reached the point of recognizing that war measures 
were proper in order to carry on a war. They were so 
filled, indeed, with new-born zeal that, after having held 



ISO 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



Washington hack and crippled him by delays and by lack of 
support, they proceeded to demand the impossible and urge 
by solemn resolution that Boston be taken at once, even 
if the town were destroyed. This was a good deal better 
than being left without any government at all, but we can 
imagine how trying it must have been to the silent soldier 
who had been laboring for months to take Boston, and 







*> 



Hi 







- 
5 . 




M 



INDEPENDENCE 11 M, I., PHILADELPHIA, CHESTNUT STREET FRONT. 



who now answered Congress in a conclusive and severe 
manner which did them much good. 

bar stronger in its effect on Congress than the action 
of the King, or even the demands of the army, was the 
change in public sentiment, which was the result of many 
causes. From the time of the Stamp Act to the day of 
Lexington the American party in the colonies had steadily 



INDEPENDENCE 151 

declared, with great fervor and entire honesty, that they 
had no thought of independence, which meant separation 
from the empire. They protested even with anger that 
the charge that they aimed at any such result was the 
invention of their enemies and made to injure their 
cause. When the first Congress assembled this was the 
universal feeling, and Washington was but one of many 
who asserted it strongly. Here and there was a man 
like Samuel Adams, radical by nature, and very keen of 
perception, who saw the set of the tide ; but even these 
men said nothing and agreed to the views held by the 
vast majority. The change started at Lexington. When 
fighting had once begun, no other outcome but separa- 
tion or complete subjection was possible. To carry their 
point by defeating the troops of Great Britain and yet 
remain an integral part of the empire was out of the 
question. At the distance of more than a century we 
see this very plainly, but it was not so easily understood 
at the time. Washington grasped it at once, and when 
he took command of the army he knew that the only issue 
must be a complete victory for one side or the other, but 
Congress, still working along the old lines of reconciliation 
and peace, could not see it as he did, and hence their hesi- 
tations. They still thought that they could defeat the 
King's armies and remain subjects of the King. Every 
day that passed, however, made the impossibility of this 
attitude more apparent. Every ship that came from Eng- 
land brought news which stamped this idea of peace and 
union as false, and each colony that set up a government 
for itself gave the lie to such a proposition. 

Outside of Congress there was constant discussion 
going on by which public opinion was formed. At the 



i52 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

outset the loyalists had main' able waiters, chiefly clergy- 
men of the Anglican ( lunch, who opposed the arguments 
so vigorously urged in support of the American claims. 
The writers on the American side, however, not only pos- 
sessed abundant ability but events were with them. Dick- 
inson, in the " Farmer's Letters," before he became con- 
servative ; .Alexander Hamilton, in his replies to Samuel 
Seabury, an Episcopal clergyman and author of the able 
letters of the Westchester Farmer ; John Adams, and 
many lesser men had done much in shaping public senti- 
ment. The sat i lists and the versemen were generally on 
the American side, and they reached the people through 
their humor, wit, and fancy. Some of them, like Hop- 
kinson, Freneau, and Trumbull, were clever men, who 
often wrote brilliantly and always well, and their excellent 
verses, full of pith and point, went everywhere and con- 
verted many a reader who had been deaf to the learned 
constitutional and political arguments which poured from 
the press. Newspapers were not as yet a power. It 
was through pamphlets that the printed debate before the 
people was conducted, and it was well and amply per- 
formed on both sides. 

The same change which is apparent in Congress is 
apparent also in the literature * of this crucial time. As 
events hurried on, supplying arguments for the American 
side and forcing the American party from mere legal op- 
position to war, separation, and independence, the tone of 



In all I have to say about the litei itun ol tru time I desire to express my obliga- 
tion in the fullest measure to Professor Tyler's admirable History of the Literature of 
the Revolution. This is particularly the case in regard to the chapter on the Declara- 
tion ol Independence from the literary point ol view, which is not only admirable but 

conclusive. 



INDEPENDENCE 153 

the loyalist writers gets lower, and many of them left or 
were forced to leave the country. On the other hand, 
the American writers grew constantly more vigorous and 
more triumphant, and demanded stronger measures. Thus 
public opinion, rapidly changing in tone in the winter of 
1775-76, needed but the right man speaking the right word 
to send it irresistibly along the new path. It was just at 
this moment that John Trumbull published his satire of 
McFingal, and the sharp hits and pungent humor of the 
poem caught the public ear and helped to spur on the lag- 
gards in the American cause. But a mightier voice was 
needed than this, and it, too, came at the beginning of this 
new and fateful year of 1776. It gave utterance to the 
popular feeling, it put into words what the average man 
was thinking and could not express for himself, and it did 
this with a force and energy which arrested attention in 
America, and travelling across seas, made men over there 
listen too. This voice crying aloud to such purpose was 
not that of an American but of an Englishman. The writer 
was Thomas Paine, staymaker, privateersman, exciseman, 
teacher, adventurer, and his pamphlet was called "Com- 
mon Sense." Paine, after a checkered career both in do- 
mestic and official life, had come over to America with no 
capital but a letter of introduction from Franklin. He got 
a start in writing for the newspapers and threw himself 
into the life about him. He came a friend to the English 
connection. Then looking about him with eyes undimmed 
and with mind unhampered by colonial habits, he reached 
the conclusion in the course of a year that independence 
was not merely right but the only thing possible. So with 
but little literary experience he sat him down and wrote 
his pamphlet. He first argued about kingship and natural 



154 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

rights, and then in favor of independence. Critics have 
said of that first part that it was crude, unreasoned, and 
full of blunders, for Paine was not learned. Yet in that 
same fust part he enunciated the great principle which 
lay at the bottom of the whole business, which James Otis 
had put forward years before, that in the nature of things 
there was no reason for kings, and every reason why people 
should rule themselves. And this was just what this 
quarrel had come to, so that it needed no learning but 
onlv courage and common sense to set it forth. As for 
the second part, which concerned the practical question 
always of most interest to men, Paine knew his subject 
thoroughly and he argued the cause of independence in 
a bold, convincing, indeed unanswerable, fashion. He 
put forth his argument in a strong, effective style, roughly, 
plainly, so that all stopped to listen and all understood. 
11 is pamphlet went far and wide with magical rapidity. 
It appeared in every form, and was reprinted and sold in 
every colony and town of the Atlantic seaboard. Pres- 
ent lv it crossed the ocean, was translated into French, and 
touched with unshrinking hand certain chords in the Old 
World long silent but now beginning to quiver into life. 
In the colonies alone it is said that one hundred and 
twenty thousand copies were sold in three months. This 
means that almost every American able to read, had lead 
" Common Sense." Its effect was prodigious, vet with all 
its merits it is a mistake to glorify it as having convinced 
the people that they must have independence. The con- 
victions were there already, made slowly by events, by 
the long discussion, by the English policy, by the lighting 
around Boston. "Common Sense"may have converted 
many doubters, but it did something really far more im- 



INDEPENDENCE 



155 



portant ; it gave utterance to the dumb thoughts of the 
people ; it set forth to the world, with nervous energy, 
convictions already formed ; it supplied every man with 
the words and the arguments to explain and defend the 
faith that was in him. Many Americans were thinking 
what " Common Sense " said with so much power. So 
the pamphlet marked an epoch, was a very memorable 
production, and from 
the time of its publica- 
tion the tide slowly set- 
ting in the direction of 
independence began to 
race, with devo u r i n g 
swiftness, to the high- 
water mark. 

As the winter wore 
away and spring began, 
Congress, still lingering 
behind the people, con- 
tinued to adopt war- 
like measures but did 
nothing for independ- 
ence. The central col- 
onies still hung back, 

although the movement for independent provincial gov- 
ernments went on unchecked, and the action in that 
direction of each separate colony brought nearer like 
action on the part of the continent. The rising of the 
Highlanders in the valley of the Mohawk under Sir 
John Johnson, easily crushed by Schuyler ; a similar ris- 
ing of the Highlanders in North Carolina, defeated in 
a sharp fight by the Minute Men under Caswell ; the 




THOMAS PAINE. 
From painting by C 11'. Peak, 178, 



156 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

evacuation of Boston, all drove events forward and forced 
the hands of Congress. The measures of Congress stiff- 
ened. More men and more money were voted, the 
country was divided into military departments, and Silas 
Deane was appointed an agent to France. Still they 
shrank from facing what they knew must be faced, but 
the friends of independence could no longer be kept silent. 
Even if Pennsylvania, not without great effort, was kept 
true to Dickinson and peace, the other colonies were com- 
ing into line, and the American party, virtually led by 
John Adams, began to argue for independence on almost 
every debate which sprang up. In some way the real issue 
appeared on every occasion, and the efforts to avoid it, or 
to pretend that it was not there, grew fainter and fainter. 
On May ioth John Adams carried his resolution to in- 
struct all the colonics that had not yet done so to set up 
independent governments, a heavy blow to the Pennsyl- 
vania peace party and a long step toward national inde- 
pendence. In the same month the Virginia convention, 
which established the State government, instructed the 
delegates in Congress to urge and support independence. 
With this decision from the oldest and most powerful 
colony, backed as it was by Massachusetts and New Eng- 
land, the final conflict in Congress could no longer be post- 
poned. The .American party was in the ascendant, and 
with the instructions from Virginia would wait no longer. 
The other colonies, even those in the centre, were now 
all in line, or fast coming there, and Congress could not 
hesitate further. On June 8th Richard Henry Lee, in 
the name of Virginia, moved that the colonies were, and 
of right ought to be, free and independent, and that their 
allegiance to the British Crown ought to be dissolved 



INDEPENDENCE 



157 



For two days the question was earnestly debated, and 
then it was decided, although the resolution clearly had a 
majority, to postpone the debate for three weeks, during 
which time plans were to be prepared for a confederation 
and for treaties with foreign powers, and the members 
were to have opportunity to consult their constituents, so 
that the great act, if possible, might be adopted with 
unanimity. To avoid any delay a committee was appointed 
to draft a declaration to accompany the resolution for 
independence. This committee 
consisted of Jefferson, John 
Adams, Franklin, Roger Sher- 
man, and Robert Livingston, 
and to Jefferson was intrusted 
the work of preparing the draft. 

The three weeks slipped rap- 
idly by. Congress heard from 
its constituents, and there was no 
mistaking what they said. New 
England and the South were al- 
ready for independence. New 
York, menaced on the north by 
savages and on the south by the speedy coming of a 
powerful English Meet, wheeled into line. Maryland and 
Delaware joined readily and easily. New Jersey called 
a State convention to establish a State government, 
arrested their royal Governor, William Franklin, and elect- 
ed five stanch friends of independence to Congress. Even 
Pennsylvania, after long debates and many misgivings, 
agreed to sustain Congress if it voted for independence. 

All was ready for action when Congress met on July 
1 st. There were fifty members present, and they were 




ROCER SHERMAN. 
From the painting by Ralph EarU, i;S; 



153 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

the best and ablest men .America could produce. It was 
the zenith of the Continental Congress. However through 
inevitable causes it afterward weakened, however ill suited 
it was by its constitution for executive functions, it now 
faced the task for which it was perfectly fitted. No wiser 
or more patriotic body of men ever met a revolutionary 
crisis or took the fate of a nation in their hands with a 
deeper and liner sense of the heavy responsibility rest- 
ing upon them. AH that they did was grave and serious. 
They faced the great duty before them calmly, but with a 
profound sense of all that it meant. 

A letter from Washington was read showing how 
small his army was and how badly armed. A despatch 
from Lee announced the arrival of the British tleet and 
army at Charleston. Unmoved and firm, Congress passed 
to the order of the day and went into committee of the 
whole to consider the resolution "respecting independ- 
ence." The mover, Richard Henry Lee, was absent at 
the Virginia convention. There was a pause, and then 
John Adams arose and made the great speech which 
caused Jefferson to call him the Colossus of Debate, and 
which, unreported as it was, lives in tradition as one of 
the memorable feats of oratory. With all the pent-up feel- 
ing gathered through the years when he was looked on 
with suspicion and distrust, with all the fervor of an earn- 
est nature and of burning conviction, he poured forth the 
arguments which he had thought of for months, and which 
sprang from his lips full-armed. There was no nevd of 
further speech on that side after this great outburst, but 
Dickinson defended the position he had long held, and 
others entered into the discussion. When the vote was 
taken, New York, favoring independence, but still with- 



INDEPENDENCE 



159 



out absolute instructions, refused to vote. South Caro- 
lina, instructed but still hesitating, voted with Pennsyl- 
vania in the negative. The other nine colonics voted for 
independence. Then the committee rose, and on the 
request of South Carolina the final vote was postponed 
until the next day. 

When they met on July 2d they listened to another 
letter from Washington, telling them that Howe, with 
some fifty ships carrying troops, had appeared off Sandy 
Hook. There was no quiver in the letter; he hoped for 
reinforcements, but he was ready to face the great odds, 
weak as he was. No news came from Charleston, which 
might have been falling before the British fire even as 
they talked. The enemy was at the gates, but there was 
no wavering and their cour- 
age rose under the dangers 
upon them. With inde- 
pendence declared, they 
would have a cause to fight 
for. Without it they were 
beating the air. So they 
went to a vote. New York 
was, as before, for inde- 
pendence, but still unable 
to vote. South Carolina, 
knowing only that her can- 
ital was in danger, and still 
in ignorance that the bat- 
tle had been won, voted 

for independence. Delaware was no longer divided, and 
Pennsylvania, by the intentional absence of Dickinson 
and Morris, was free to vote with the rest. So twelve 




ROBERT MORRIS. 

paintil I ■: S.ir.!, 



160 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

colonies voted unanimously for independence, thirteen 
agreed to it, and the resolution passed. Henceforth there 
were to be no colonies from Maine to Florida ; a nation 
was born and stood up to prove its right to live. The 
great step had been taken. It now remained to set forth 
to the world the reasons for what had been done there in 
Philadelphia on July 2, 1776. 

Thomas Jefferson, to whom this momentous work had 
been intrusted, came a young man to Congress, preceded 
by a decided reputation as a man of ability and a vigorous 
and felicitous writer. His engaging manners and obvi- 
ously great talents secured to him immediately the regard 
and affection of his fellow-members. He was at once 
placed on a committee to draft the declaration of the 
reasons for taking up arms, and then on one to reply to 
the propositions of Lord North. So well did he do his 
part, and so much did he impress his associates, that 
when the resolution for independence was referred, he was 
chosen to stand at the head of the committee and to him 
was intrusted the work of drafting the Declaration. No 
happier choice could have been made. It was in its way 
as wise and fortunate as the selection of Washington to 
lead the armies. This was not because Jefferson was the 
ablest man in the Congress. In intellectual power and 
brilliancy Franklin surpassed him and John Adams, who, 
like Franklin, was on the committee, was a stronger 
character, a better lawyer, and a much more learned man. 
Bui lor this particular work, so momentous to America, 
Jefferson was better adapted than any other of the able 
men who separated America from England. He was, 
above all things, the child of his time. lie had the eager, 
open mind, the robust optimism, the desire for change so 



INDEPENDENCE 



163 



characteristic of those memorable years with which the 
eighteenth century closed. Instead of fearing innovation, 
he welcomed it as a good in itself, and novelty always 
appealed to him, whether it appeared in the form of a 
plough or a government. He was in full and utter sym- 
pathy with his time and with the great forces then begin- 




VIEW OF 1XDEPEXDENCE HALL FROM THE PARK SIDE. 



ning to stir into life. 



Others might act from convictions 
on the question of taxation ; others still because they felt 
that separation from England was the only way to save 
their liberty ; but to Jefferson independence had come to 
mean the right of the people to rule. He had learned 
rapidly in the stirring times through which he had passed. 
The old habits of thought and customs of politics had 



160 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

colonies voted unanimously for independence, thirteen 
agreed to it, and the resolution passed. Henceforth there 
were to be no colonies from Maine to Florida ; a nation 
was horn and stood up to prove its right to live. The 
great step had been taken. It now remained to set forth 
to the world the reasons for what had been done there in 
Philadelphia on July 2, 1776. 

Thomas Jefferson, to whom this momentous work had 
been intrusted, came a young man to Congress, preceded 
by a decided reputation as a man of ability and a vigorous 
and felicitous w r riter. His engaging manners and obvi- 
ouslv great talents secured to him immediately the regard 
and affection of his fellow-members. He was at once 
placed on a committee to draft the declaration of the 
reasons for taking up arms, and then on one to reply to 
the propositions of Lord North. So well did he do his 
part, and so much did he impress his associates, that 
when the resolution for independence was referred, he was 
chosen to stand at the head of the committee and to him 
was intrusted the work of drafting the Declaration. No 
happier choice could have been made. It was in its way 
as wise and fortunate as the selection of Washington to 
lead the armies. This was not because Jefferson was the 
ablest man in the Congress. In intellectual power and 
brilliancy Franklin surpassed him and John Adams, who, 
like Franklin, was on the committee, was a stronger 
character, a better lawyer, and a much more learned man. 
Bui for t his particular work, so momentous to America, 
Jefferson was better adapted than any other of the able 
men who separated .America from England. lie was, 
above all things, the child of his time. He had the eager, 
open mind, the robust optimism, the desire for change so 



INDEPENDENCE 



163 



characteristic of those memorable years with which the 
eighteenth century closed. Instead of fearing innovation, 
he welcomed it as a good in itself, and novelty always 
appealed to him, whether it appeared in the form of a 
plough or a government. He was in full and utter sym- 
pathy with his time and with the great forces then begin- 




1'IEW OF INDEPENDENCE HALL FROM THE PARK SIDE. 



ning to stir into life. Others might act from convictions 
on the question of taxation ; others still because they felt 
that separation from England was the only way to save 
their liberty ; but to Jefferson independence had come to 
mean the right of the people to rule. He had learned 
rapidly in the stirring times through which he had passed. 
The old habits of thought and customs of politics had 



1 64 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



dropped away from him, and he was tilled with the spirit 
of democracy, that new spirit which a few years later 
was to convulse Europe. Compared with the men about 
him, Jefferson was an extremist and a radical, more ex- 
treme in his theories than they guessed, or perhaps than 

















\ 



STAIRWAY IN INDEPENDENCE HALL. 



even he himself conceived. Compared with the men of 
the French Revolution he was an ultraconservative, and 
\(l the spirit which moved them all was the same. He 
believed, as they believed, that the right to rule lay with 
the whole people and not with one man or with a seleeted 
class. When he sat down to write the Declaration of 
Independence it was the spirit of the age, the faith in 




3 



INDEPENDENCE 



167 



the future, and in a larger liberty for mankind which fired 
his brain and guidsd his pen. 

The result was the Declaration of Independence. The 
draft was submitted to Franklin and Adams, who made 
a few slight changes. The influence of the South struck 
out the paragraph against slavery. It was read on July 
3d. A debate ensued in which John Adams led as in 
that on the resolution, and on July 4th the Congress 
agreed to the Declaration and authorized the President 




ROOM IN INDEPENDENCE HALL IN WHICH THE DECLARATION WAS 

SIGNED. 



and Secretary to sign, attest, and publish it. The formal 
signing by the members did not take place until August, 
and some signatures were given even later. But the July 
4th when the Declaration was adopted by Congress was 



:68 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

the day which the American people have set apart and 
held sacred to the memory of a great deed. 

The Declaration when published was read to the army 
under Washington and received l>v the soldiers with con- 
tent. It was a satisfaction to them to have the reality 
for which they were fighting put into words and officially 
declared. It was read also formally and with some cere- 
mony in public places, in all the chief towns of the colo- 
nies, and was received by the people cordially and heartily, 
hut without excitement. There was no reason why it 
should have called forth much feeling, for it merely em- 
bodied public opinion already made up, and was expected 
bv the loyalist minority. Yet despite its general accept- 
ance, which showed its political strength, it was a great 
and memorable document. From that day to this it has 
been listened to with reverence by a people who have 
grown to be a great nation, and equally from that day 
to this it has been the subject of severe criticism. The 
reverence is right, the criticism misplaced and founded on 
misunderstanding. 

The Declaration is divided into two parts : First, the 
statement of certain general principles of the rights of men 
and peoples, and, secondly, an attack on George III. as a 
tyrant, setting forth, in a series of propositions, the wrongs 
done bv him to the Americans which justified them in 
rebellion. Criticism has been directed first against the 
attack on the King, then to the originality of the doctrines 
enunciated, then against the statement of the rights of 
man, Jefferson's "self-evident truths," and finally against 
tin- style. 

The last criticism is easilv disposed of. Year after 
year, for more than a century, the Declaration of hide- 




READING THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE TO THE TROOPS IN VEJV YORK 
ASSEMBLED ON THE COMMON, NOW CITY HALL PARE. OLD ST. PAUL'S IN THE BACK- 



GROUND 



INDEPENDENCE 



171 



pendence has been solemnly read in every city, town, and 
hamlet of the United States to thousands of Americans 
who have heard it over and over again, and who listen to 
it in reverent silence and rejoice that it is theirs to read. 
If it had been badly written, the most robust patriotism 
would be incapable of this habit. False rhetoric or turgid 
sentences would have been their own death-warrant, and 
the pervading American sense of humor would have seen 
to its execution. The mere fact that Jefferson's words 
have stood successfully this endless repetition is infallible 
proof that the Declaration has the true and high literary 
quality which alone could have preserved through such 
trials its impressiveness and its savor. To those who will 
study the Declaration carefully from the literary side, it is 
soon apparent that the English is fine, the tone noble and 
dignified, and the style strong, clear, and imposing. 






9^*£^ £S^ fr^ 9^9, 





' ^*-' .^J 



X&-^> Jo 




FROM THE RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED BY CONGRESS, JULY j, 1776. 

■simile of a fart of the original draft belonging to the Emmet collation in the Lenox Library. 



172 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

Passing from the form to the substance, critics as far 
apart as John Adams and Lord John Russell have con- 
demned the attack on George III. and the charge that 
he was a tyrant as unjust, bitter, and almost absurd. Yet, 
as the years have gone by, it has become very plain that 
George III. was really making a final and very serious 
attempt to restore the royal authority, and was seeking 
by shrewder and more insidious methods to regain what 
Charles I. had lost. He was steadily following out his 
mother's behest and trying to be a king. If the revolt 
had not come in America it would have come in England, 
and England would have defeated his plans and broken 
his power as his American colonies succeeded in doing. 
When the best of modern English historians, like Lecky 
and Green, admit this in regard to George III., we need 
not question that Jefferson's instinct was a true one when 
he drew the indictment of his sovereign. But Jefferson 
was right on broader grounds than this. He was declar- 
ing something much more far-reaching than the right of 
the colonies to separate from England. He was announc- 
ing to the world the right of the people to rule themselves, 
and that no one man was entitled to be king, but that 
every man had a title to kingship in virtue of his man- 
hood. The logical step from this proposition was not to 
assail the people or Parliament of England, which would 
have been a contradiction of his own argument, but the 
man who represented the old-time theory of kingship and 
from whom as part of a system the evils he complained 
of came. Jefferson was instinctively right when he struck 
at the kingly power, for that was the real point of conflict. 

John Adams's criticism that the doctrines and princi- 
ples set forth were not new, but had been heard before 




TEARING DOWN THE LEADEN STATUE OF GEORGE III., ON BOWLING 
GREEN, NEW YORK, TO CELEBRATE THE SIGNING OF THE DECLARATION 
OF INDEPENDENT E. 

The lead lias later moulded into bullets for the American Army. 



INDEPENDENCE 175 

from James Otis down through all the long controversy, 
was simply inept. The doctrines and principles, of course, 
were not new. That was their strength. Jefferson was not 
a Frenchman bursting suddenly through the tyranny of cen- 
turies, to whom the language of freedom and of constitu- 
tional liberty was an unknown tongue. He was one of 
that great race which for five hundred years, from Magna 
Charta to the Declaration of Independence, from Runny- 
mede to Philadelphia, had been slowly, painfully, and very 
strenuously building up a fabric of personal liberty and 
free government. In all those long discussions, in all 
those bitter struggles, the words and principles of freedom 
and human rights had been developed and made familiar. 
This was the language which Jefferson spoke. Its glory 
was that it was not new, and that the people to whom he 
spoke understood it, and all it meant, because it was a part 
of their inheritance, like their mother-tongue. In vivid 
phrases he set forth what his people felt, knew, and wanted 
said. It was part of his genius that he did so. He was 
not a man of action, but a man of imagination, of ideas 
and sympathies, tie was a failure as the war Governor 
of Virginia. The greatest and most adroit of politicians 
and organizers, when dangers from abroad threatened him 
as President, he was timid, hesitating, and inadequate. 
But when he was summoned to declare the purposes of 
the American people in the face of the world and at the 
bar of history, he came to the work which no other man 
could have done so well. His imagination ; his keen, 
sure glance into the future ; his intense human sympathies 
came into full play, and he spoke his message so that it 
went home to the hearts of his people with an unerring 
flioht. 



176 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

The last and best-known criticism is the bold epigram 
of Rufus Choate, most brilliant of American advocates, 
that the Declaration of Independence is made up of 
'glittering generalities." Again the criticism proceeds 
on a misunderstanding. The Declaration of Independ- 
ence in its famous opening sentences is made up of gen- 
eralities, and rightly. That they glitter is proof of the 
writer's skill and judgment. It was not the place for 
careful argument and solid reasoning. Jefferson was set- 
ting forth the reasons for a revolution, asserting a great, 
new principle, for which men were to be asked to die. 
His task was to make it all as simple, yet as splendid as 
possible. He was to tell men that they must separate 
from the great empire of England and govern themselves, 
and he must do it in such a way that he who ran might 
not only read, but comprehend. It is the glory of Jeffer- 
son that he did just this, and it was no fault of his that 
the South dimmed one of his glowing sentences by strik- 
ing out his condemnation of human slavery. 

In the Declaration of Independence Jefferson uttered, 
in a noble and enduring manner, what was stirring in the 
hearts of his people. The " Marseillaise " is not great 
poetry, nor the air to which it was set the greatest music. 
But no one can hear that song and not feel his pulses 
beat quicker and his blood course more swiftly through 
his veins. It is because the author of it Hung into his 
lyric the spirit of a great time, and the dreams and aspira- 
tions of a great people. Hope, faith, patriotism, victory, 
all cry out to us in that mighty hymn of the Revolution, 
and no one can listen to it unmoved. In more sober fash- 
ion, after the manner of his race, Jefferson declared the 
hopes, beliefs, and aspirations of the American people. 




THOMAS JEFFERSON WRITING THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



INDEPENDENCE 179 

But the spirit of the time is there in every line and every 
sentence, saying to all men ; a people has risen up in the 
West, they are weary of kings, they can rule themselves, 
they will tear down the old landmarks, they will let loose 
a new force upon the world, and with the wilderness and 
the savage at their backs they will even do battle for the 
faith that is in them. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE FIGHT FOR THE HUDSON 

WHILE Congress was coming to a decision upon 
the great question of Independence, the war 
was entering upon its second stage, and, as it 
proved, that in which the American Revolution narrowly 
escaped shipwreck. When the British undertook to co- 
erce the colonies by force, they expected little resistance. 
They did not measure at all the task before them, and 
they were, therefore, taken by surprise when the people 
rose up and sprang upon them. The British governors 
were expelled one after another without any serious con- 
flict, and the colonies passed rapidly and easily to the con- 
dition of independent States. The political management 
of the king and his ministers was so clumsy that a firm 
union of all the colonies was formed before their very 
eyes, and this one absolutely essential condition of Amer- 
ican success was made sure at an early day. In a military 
way they had fared no better. Their ill-considered raid 
on Concord had resulted in a disorderly retreat. Their 
victory at Bunker llill had been purchased at an enor- 
mous sacrifice of life, and had only served to encourage 
the Americans. They had been compelled, by the superior 
generalship of Washington, to evacuate Boston, and their 

blundering attack on Charleston had been repelled with 

1 80 



THE FIGHT FOR THE HUDSON 181 

loss and humiliation. All the solid advantages, both mili- 
tary and political, during the first year of revolution, had 
been wholly on the side of the Americans. This was due 
to the wilful ignorance of the English as to their oppo- 
nents, whom they despised, and who for this reason took 
them unawares and defeated them, and to the further fact 
that a people in arms was a new force of great power, 
upon which neither they nor anyone else had calculated. 

These conditions could not, in the nature of things, 
endure. The British, recovering from their surprise, pro- 
ceeded to make arrangements for conquering their revolted 
provinces in a manner commensurate to the work before 
them, the seriousness of which they had so entirely under- 
estimated. George III., who took a deep personal inter- 
est in the war, which, consciously or unconsciously, he felt 
to be the test of his schemes and the trial of his power, 
set his agents running over Europe to buy soldiers from 
anybody who had men to sell. 

Mis first effort was in Russia. Gunning, the English 
Minister, interpreted some flowery compliments and sound- 
ing protestations of friendship to mean that Catherine 
would give England twenty thousand soldiers to put 
down the rebellious colonists. When the demand was 
actually made, there were more fine words, much talk 
and much evasion, but it finally appeared that Catherine 
had no notion of giving any troops at all, and the end 
was a refusal. Hence, much disappointment in England, 
where the Russian soldiers were confidently expected. 
George fared no better in Holland when he asked for the 
Scotch Brigade. The Prince of Orange was sufficiently 
ready, but the States-General hesitated, and the only result 
was a polite offer to let England have the brigade provided 



182 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

they should not be called upon to serve out of Europe, 
which was equivalent to a refusal. Among the little states 
of Germany, George had better luck. Some of the petty 
princes offered troops voluntarily, and in others he had no 
difficulty in making a bargain. The wretched grand dukes, 
electors, princes, and other serene persons exacted a heavy 
price for the men whom they sold, but still England got 
the men, and in large numbers, especially from Brunswick 
and Hesse Cassel. Frederick of Prussia, on the other 
hand, as a man and a German, regarded with feelings akin 
to loathing this sale of men by the lesser German princes. 
At a later time he would not even permit England's mer- 
cenaries to cross his territory, for he had no sympathy with 
George, and being not only a great man but a clear-sighted 
and efficient one, he looked with contempt on English 
incompetence and blundering, and predicted the success 
of the colonies. Why a brave and powerful people like 
the English should have bought soldiers to fight their 
battles in a civil war is not easy now to understand. It 
was, however, due to the general inefficiency which then 
prevailed in British administration, and was a very cost- 
ly expedient apart from the money actually spent, for it 
injured England in European opinion, encouraged and 
justified the colonies in seeking foreign aid, and smoothed 
the path for American diplomacy. It also spurred on the 
Americans to fio;ht harder because foreign mercenaries 
were employed against them, and it embittered their feel- 
ings toward the mother-country. The allies obtained by 
the British Ministry in Europe were, nevertheless, in the 
highest degree creditable and desirable, compared to those 
whom they sought and procured in America itself. That 
they should have enlisted, paid, and organized regiments 



THE FIGHT FOR THE HUDSON 183 

of American loyalists, was proper enough, but when they 
made alliances with the Indians and turned them loose on 
the frontier settlements and against American armies, they 
took a step which nothing could palliate or excuse. To 
make allies of cruel lighting savages, and set them upon 
men of their own race and blood, was something which 
could not be justified and it met with its fit reward. The 
Americans knew well what Indian warfare meant, and 
when England sent Indians on the war-path against them, 
her action roused a burning hatred which nothing could 
appease. If it was the King's plan to drive the Americans 
to desperation and make the retention of the colonies ab- 
solutely hopeless, this alliance with the Indians was the 
surest way to accomplish that result. Yet without her 
Hessians, Indians, and loyalists it must be admitted Eng- 
land would not have had even a chance, for she seemed 
unable to furnish any adequate number of troops herself. 
It was all part of the amazing blundering which character- 
ized English administration in the American Revolution, 
and for which we have no explanation except in the fact 
that the King was undertaking the work of government 
and carefully excluded all men of the first order from his 
councils. 

From the American point of view at that time, how- 
ever, these considerations, as well as the ultimate effect 
of England's policy in getting allies, were by no means 
apparent. All they saw was that the men had been pro- 
cured, and that powerful armies and fleets were coming 
against them. This was what Washington was obliged 
to face. It was no use discussing the morals or the policy 
of buying Germans. There they were under the English 
flag, and they were brought to America to fight. • 



1 84 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

Washington certainly was under no illusions. He 
knew that England would make a great effort and was a 
great power. lie knew, too, that New York would be 
the first object of British attack. It was the essential 
strategic point, without which any attempt to cut off New 
England from the rest of the colonies, by controlling the 
line of the Hudson, would be utterly barren. Without 
any delay he quitted Boston, the scene of his victory on 
March 17th, and was in New York by .April 13th, bring- 
ing with him all the troops he could gather. The outlook 
there was, dark enough. The city was undefended ; most 
of his troops were new recruits ; there was a powerful 
Tory party, and Tryon, the last British Governor, was 
actively intriguing and conspiring with the loyalists from 
his station on a man-of-war. Congress, on the other hand, 
was struggling with the question of independence and 
did little to aid him, while the provincial committees had 
neither the experience nor as yet the determination of 
those he had dealt with in New England. Nevertheless, 
all that man could do was done. Defensive works were 
completed or erected on Brooklyn Heights, on Manhattan, 
at Kingsbridge, and along the East and Hudson Rivers. 
The army was drilled and disciplined after a fashion ; the 
Tory plottings were cheeked, and every preparation was 
made which energy and ability, ill supported, could devise. 

Yet the result of all these labors when the hour of 
conflict approached and the British army had arrived, was 
disheartening. Washington had been able to gather only 
17,000 men. Nearly 7,000 of these were sick or on fur- 
lough, and he thus had lit for duty not more than 10,000 
men to cover his necessarily extensive line of works. 
With this small force, ill armed, inexperienced, and ill 



THE FIGHT FOR THE HUDSON 185 

provided, he was called upon to face and do battle with a 
British army of 31,000 men now assembled on Staten Isl- 
and, well-disciplined regulars, thoroughly equipped and 
provided, and supported by a powerful fleet to which 
Washington had nothing to oppose. It seemed madness 
to fight against such odds and run the risk of almost cer- 
tain defeat. But Washington looked beyond the present 
hour and the immediate military situation. As usual, 
political considerations had to be taken into account. 
To give up New York without a struggle, and thus have 
saved his army intact by an immediate retreat and without 
fighting, however wise from a military point of view, 
would have chilled and depressed the country to a peril- 
ous degree, and to carry on a popular war the public spirit 
must be maintained. More important than this even was 
the danger which Washington saw plainly far away to the 
north, where Carleton was pressing down the line of the 
lakes. If Sir William Howe and his army succeeded in 
advancing rapidly and meeting him before winter set in, it 
would mean the division of the northern colonies by the 
British forces and a disaster to the Americans which 
could probably never be repaired. Even the sacrifice of 
an army would be better than this. So Washington de- 
termined to hold his ground and fight. He said that he 
hoped to make a good defence, bur he was not blind to 
the enormous risk, to the impossibility almost, of holding 
his long line of posts with so few men and with an enemy 
in command of the sea. Even while he wrote cheerfully 
as to holding his positions he exhibited the condition of 
the army to Congress in the plainest terms, and constantly 
demanded more men. But even if he had known defeat 
to be certain he still had to consider the wishes of Con- 



1 86 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 




THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND. 

From a British map of j~~6, showing the positions of tin American and British armies. [This map contains 
a few topographical errors, I'ut in the main the disposition of the forces is correctly indicated.] 

gress and the state of public opinion, and he likewise felt 
that present defeat would result in a larger ultimate vic- 
tory, if by delay he could prevent the junction of the main 
British army with the forces from the north. 

Washington was unable to tell just where the attack 
would come, which compelled him to spread out his 
small force in order to cover so far as possible every 




"" llmmmim "" m """"" i ' l "" li '" Nl " 1 inililllllllllll Illllllll MJillllllilllllllll!l!illl!l!lli!lll|[|iil| 



GENERAL NATHANIEL GREENE. 
From the fainting by Charles Willson Prate, nSj. 



THE FIGHT FOR THE HUDSON 



189 




■- oj Tablet, Placed 1 Hr, i>Hj n 

■ 
Marking the Line 0/ Dej 
. tie of Long Island. 



point. This put him at an additional disadvantage when 
the British moved, as they did on August 2 2d, landing 
15,000 men on Long Island, and following this up on the 
25th with the German division under 
Heister, with forty cannon. T h e 
Americans had about 8,000 men, half 
in the works at Brooklyn and half 
outside to meet the British and de- 
fend the approaches. The whole po- 
sition was untenable in the long run 
because the English controlled the 
sea, and yet New York could not be 
held at all if Brooklvn Heights were 
in the hands of the enemy. It was 

a choice of evils, and it is easier to point out Washing- 
ton's military error in trying to hold Long Island than 
to sav what he should have done. It was also a serious 
mistake to divide the troops and leave half outside, and 
to this mistake, for which the commander-in-chief was 
finally responsible, was added a series of misfortunes and 
small blunders. The command on Long Island had been 
intrusted to General Greene, the best officer Washington 
had, but just before the British landed, Greene was strick- 
en with a violent fever, and the command passed first to 
Sullivan and then to Putnam. Both were brave men ; 
neither was a soldier of great ability or a strategist, and 
they were alike ignorant of the country which Greene 
knew by heart. Sullivan held the outposts while Putnam 
remained at Brooklyn Heights and did not come out when 
the fighting began. The British Meet opened a heavy fire 
on the New York works earlv on August 27th. Mean- 
time the British forces skilfully divided, and well guided 



190 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



during the previous day and night, had got round to Sul- 
livan's rear by undefended roads. Sullivan, hemmed in 
on all sides, made a vigorous effort to retreat, but it was 

useless. Some of the 
Americans, by desperate 
fighting, broke through, 
but many were captured, 
including Sullivan him- 
self. Lord Sterling, in 
command of the other 
outlying American force, 
fared almost as ill as Sul- 
livan. Attacked on both 
sides, he had no line of 
retreat, except across Go- 
wan us Creek. LI is men 
made a gallant stand, and 
most of them succeeded 
in crossing the creek, but 
Sterling himself and many of his division were taken 
prisoners. The Americans outflanked, outgcneralled, and 
outnumbered four to one, were badly beaten in these two 
actions. They lost 970 men in killed and wounded, and 
1,077 captured, while the British loss was but 400. 

Washington, when he heard of the British landing, 
had sent six regiments to Brooklyn, and came over on the 
day of the action only to witness with anguish the utter 
rout of the detachments under Sullivan and Sterling. 
The situation produced by this defeat was grave in the 
extreme, for the troops were thoroughly demoralized by 
their losses, and many of the militia actually deserted. It 
looked as if the American army were doomed. But the 




OF X ERA L ISRA EL Pi ' TNA M. 



From a portrait hy 11. I. Tompson, after ,i pencil-sketch 
/rem life by Jolt,, Trumbull. 



THE FIGHT FOR THE HUDSON 



191 










British delayed 
and, mindful of 
Bunker Hill, in- 
stead of at once 
assaulting the 
B r o o k 1 y n i n - 
trenchments, 
which alone pro- 
tected the shattered 
American army, they 
broke mound for a sieere, 
This gave Washington time, 
and time was all he needed. He brought 
over reinforcements, encouraged his men 
and strengthened his works. But he did 
not mean to fight there except as a last 
resource, for he had no idea of stak- 
ing his whole army on a single ac- 
tion against overwhelming odds, if 
he could avoid it. While the men 
labored on the intrenchments, he 
quietly gathered boats, and seeing 
on the 29th that the British meant 
to come on his rear with their fleet, 
he embarked his whole army that 
night and crossed successfully to 
New York. It was a masterly re- 
treat. In the face of a strong 

enemy lying within gunshot, with a hostile fleet close at 
hand, he put 9,000 men into boats, ferried them across a 
broad stream swept by strong tides and currents, and left 
behind only a few heavy guns. The wind was light and a 



». 




BATTLE PASS, PROSPECT PARK, 
BROOKLYN. 

Showing a fart of the battle-field. 
The tablet designates the line of defence* 



I 92 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



thick mist helped to cover the movement. Washington, 
in the saddle and on foot for forty-eight hours, watched 
aver everything, and was the last to leave. As he fol- 
lowed his heavily laden boats through the kindly mist and 
darkness he must have felt a sense of profound relief, for 
he had grasped a fortunate chance and had rescued his 
army from an almost hopeless position. The American 




PRESENT VIEW FROM OLD FOR 1' PUTNAM (.NOW FORT GREENE), BROOKLYN. 
This fort for tntd a fart of the defences en Long Island. 

forces had been beaten in two heavy skirmishes, but the 
American army had escaped. It was possible to make 
the raw militia who had been defeated in their first open 
action into veterans, for they lacked nothing toward becom- 
ing good soldiers except experience. But if the only Ameri- 
can arm\' in the field had been destroyed at the very outset 
of the contest, the Revolution would have been in great 
peril. Washington's one thought was to hold his army 
together and light as often as he could, but whatever hap- 




c, ^ 



THE FIGHT FOR THE HUDSON 195 

pened, that army which he commanded must never be dis- 
solved. He had fought in an impossible position, been 
beaten, and saved his army from the brink of destruction, 
taking full advantage of the mistakes of his opponents. 
Now, on Manhattan Island, he faced the enemy once 
more, ready to fight again.* 

Some time after the Battle of Long Island Jay wrote 
that he had often thought during the previous spring that 
it would be best to destroy New York, desolate all the 
country about it, and withdraw up the river. This sugges- 
tion came from Greene at the moment, and after the retreat 
from Long Island Washington took it up and submitted 
it to Congress. From a military point of view the de- 
struction of the city was the just conception of an able 
general. It sounded desperate, but it was really the wisest 
thing to do. If carried out it would have forced the Brit- 
ish to abandon New York and the mouth of the Hudson, 
it would have left them on the edge of winter without 
quarters, and in the end probably would have shortened 
the war. But it was too strong a measure for Congress, 
and Washington was obliged to drop the idea. As the 
city was clearly untenable with the forces at his command, 
there was no further resource but retreat, and on Septem- 
ber 10th, although a majority of his officers were still loath 
to abandon the town, Washington began his preparations 



* The best statement in regard to the Battle of Long Island by a professional sol- 
dier is that of General Carrington, U. S. A., in his " Battles of the American Revolu- 
tion." The whole chapter should be carefully studied. I can only quote here a few 
lines. General Carrington says (p. 212): "The Battle of Long Island had to be 
fought. . . . The defence was doomed to be a failure from the first, independent 
of the co-operation of a naval force. . . . Washington was wise in his purpose 
' to make the acquisition as costly as possible to his adversary.' . . . The people 
of the country demanded that New York should be held to the last possible moment. " 



196 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

for withdrawal. While he was thus engaged, Howe, or. 
the 14th, repeated the Long Island manoeuvre, intending 
to threaten the city in front and on the North River with 
the fleet, while with his army crossing the East River and 
landing on the left flank he could cut off and destroy the 
American army. In accordance with his plan, Howe, on 
September 15th, landed at Kip's Hay and drove the mili- 
tia posted there in headlong flight. Washington hearing 
the firing, rode to the landing, only to see his men fleeing 
in all directions. The sight of their panic and cowardice 
was too much for him. The fierce fighting spirit which 
was part of his nature broke through his usually stern self- 
control in a storm of rage. He rode in among the fugi- 
tives and made desperate efforts to rally them. He ex- 
posed himself recklessly to death or capture, and was 
almost dragged from the field by his officers. Yet despite 
this disaster he managed to get his troops together, and 
although Putnam with the rear-guard had a narrow escape, 
Washington finally succeeded in bringing his whole army 
safelv to Harlem Heights. While the victorious Howe 
took possession of New York, and proceeded to look 
about him, Washington intrenched himself strongly on 
the Heights. He also sent out detachments under Col- 
onel Knowlton, the hero of the rail fence at Bunker Hill, 
and Major Leitch, and attacked the British light troops 
who were in an advanced position. The light troops were 
defeated and forced back to the main line, but the Amer- 
icans, who fought well, lost both Knowlton and Leitch. 
That Washington, with a demoralized army, in the midst 
of disastei and retreat should have assumed the offensive 
and made a successful attack, is an example of his power 
and tenacity, of which many instances were yet to come. 



THE FIGHT FOR THE HUDSON 



197 



It was this iron determination to fight at every opportunity, 
whether after victory or defeat, which enabled him con- 
stantly to check and delay the British, and what was far more 
important, turned his raw militia into an army of steady, 
disciplined fighters with a blind confidence in their chief. 
Howe, having considered the situation, decided that 











THE JUMEL MANSION, WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NEW YORK CIT\ . 
For a time Washington* s Head-quarters. 

the Harlem Heights were too strong for a front attack, 
and set about a repetition of the flanking movements of 
Long Island and Kip's Bay. His control of the water 
with the fleet, and his superior numbers, enabled him to 
do this with success. Washington, seeing just what was 
intended, for he perfectly understood by this time the 
British generals, who were not given to complicated intel- 
lectual operations, had no mind to be shut up on Man- 



-» 



198 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

hat tan Island. So he occupied the passes, and when 
Howe — it was now October 14th — attempted to land, he 
held him hack until he had withdrawn his army to the 
right bank of the Bronx, holding a strong line from Ford- 
ham to White Plains. After five days the British ad- 
vanced again, meeting Glover's brigade, who skirmished 
vigorously and fell slowly back to the main army. By 
the 28th the two armies were face to face, and Howe 
prepared to fight a great battle and end the war. They 
undertook first to turn the American left, and made a 
heavy attack on Chatterton's Hill. Twice they were 
repulsed and driven back with severe loss. Rahl, with 
his Germans, meantime crossed the Bronx and turned 
the American right, so that General McDougal was forced 
to abandon Chatterton's Hill and fall back, fighting stub- 
bornly, to the lines at White Plains. The great and de- 
cisive battle failed to come off and the Americans, more- 
over, were learning to fight in the open. In this action 
they lost one hundred and thirty killed and wounded, the 
British two hundred and thirty-one, something very dif- 
ferent from the Long Island result. The next day Howe 
considered the propriety of an assault, but thought the 
works too strong. Then Lord Percv arrived with rein- 
forcements, but it stormed on the following day, and then 
Washington quietly withdrew, leaving the British looking 
at the works, and took up a new and stronger position at 
Newcastle. 

While Washington was awaiting a fresh attack, the 
enemy began to move to Dobb's Ferry, whither Howe 
himself went in person on November 5th. The Ameri- 
cans, suspecting a movement into New Jersey, sent 
troops across the river, leaving a small force at Peekskill 



THE FIGHT FOR TFIE HUDSON 



199 



to guard the approach to the Highlands. But Howe's 
object was not what the Americans supposed. He went 
back for the purpose of capturing Fort Washington. This 
fort and Fort Lee, on the opposite bank of the Hudson, 










SITE OF FORT WASHINGTON, NEW YORK CITY, LOOKING TOWARD FORT 

LEE. 

were intended to command the river, a purpose for which 
they were quite inadequate. Washington, with correct 
military instinct, wished to abandon both, but especially 
Fort Washington, when he retreated from Manhattan. 
Fie gave way, however, to the judgment of a council of 
war, and especially to the opinion of Greene, who declared 



200 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

that the position was impregnable. I lis yielding to his 
council was a mistake on this, as on other occasions, and 
his too great deference to the opinion of his officers in the 
early years of the war, when existing conditions very likely 
forced him to subordinate his own views to those of others, 
was usually unfortunate. In this instance the correctness 
of his own judgment and his error in not standing to it 
were soon and painfully shown. Greene was no doubt 
mistaken in declaring the fort impregnable, but if it had 
been it could not have withstood treachery. It is now 
known, through a letter which came to light some twenty 
years ago, that William Demont, the adjutant of Colonel 
Magavv, went into the British lines and furnished Lord 
Percy with complete plans of the works and a statement 
of the armament and garrison. This, as we now know, 
was the news which took Howe and his army back to New 
York. Washington started for the fort as soon as he 
learned of the British movement, but was turned back by 
word that the garrison were in high spirits, and confident 
of maintaining the place. They had no idea that they 
had been betrayed, and Howe, thoroughly informed, made 
a skilful attack at every point, and carried the outworks. 
The Americans, driven into the central fort, were exposed 
on all sides. They could not even hold their ground until 
night, at which time Washington promised to come to 
their relief, desperate as the attempt must have been. 
They therefore surrendered on that day and over 2,000 
men fell into the hands of the British, who had lost 454 
in the assault, despite the advantages which Dcmont's trea- 
son gave them. 

After the fall of Fort Washington, Howe crossed over 
into New Jersey, and the first campaign for the Hudson 



THE FIGHT FOR THE HUDSON 201 

came to an end. The Americans had been beaten in 
nearly every engagement, and they had suffered a heavy 
loss by the capture of the fort. Yet the British campaign 
had none the less failed. With his undisciplined troops 
broken and demoralized by defeat, Washington had out- 
manoeuvred his adversary. He had avoided a pitched bat- 
tle, he had moved from one strong position to another, 
and, although so inferior in numbers, he had forced Howe 
to undertake slow and time-wasting flank movements. 
Howe consumed two months in advancing thirty miles. 
This in itself was defeat, for winter was upon him and Carle- 
ton had been forced to retire from Crown Point after Ar- 
nold's brilliant and desperate naval fight on the lake which 
was a Pyrrhic victory for the British. The line of the 
Hudson was still in American control, and the American 
army, much as it had suffered, was still in existence. The 
British incompetence and the ability of Washington were 
signally shown during this period of unbroken British suc- 
cess, when all the odds were in favor of Howe and against 
his opponent. 



CHAPTER IX 

TRENTON AND PRINCETON 

IT is easy to see now that while the British had been 
highly successful in their immediate objects, they had 
been defeated in the greater object upon which the 
fate of the war really turned. It is easy, too, to appreciate 
the ability with which Washington had fought, losing 
fights in such a way as to defeat the essential purpose of 
the English campaign. But at the time none of these 
things were apparent and they were not understood. At 
the moment the country saw only unbroken defeat, and 
the spirit and hope of the Americans sank. The darkest 
hour of the Revolution had come. 

Fort Washington fell on November 1 6th. This ren- 
dered Fort Lee useless, and Washington ordered its im- 
mediate evacuation. While the necessary preparations 
were being made, the enemy landed and Greene was 
forced to withdraw in great haste, saving his men, but los- 
ing everything else. He at once joined the main army, 
and it was well he could do so, for the situation was crit- 
ical in the extreme. Washington was now in an open Hat 
country, where he could not slip from one strong position 
to another, and hold the British in check as he had done on 
the Hudson. His army, too, was going to pieces. The 

continued reverses had increased desertions, and the curse 

202 



TRENTON AND PRINCETON 205 

of short enlistments, due to the lack of foresight and de- 
termination in Congress, was telling: with deadly effect. 
When their terms expired, the militia could not be in- 
duced to stay, but departed incontinently to their homes. 
Washington sent urgent orders to Lee, who had been left 
behind in the Highlands with 3,000 men, to join him, but 
Lee, who thought Washington "damnably deficient," and 
longed for an independent command, disobeyed orders, 
lingered carelessly, and talked largely about attacking the 
enemy in the rear. While thus usefully engaged he was 
picked up by a British scouting party and made a prisoner. 
At the time this incident was thought to be a disaster, for 
the colonial idea that Lee was a great man, solely because 
he was an Englishman, was still prevalent. As a matter 
of fact, it was a piece of good fortune, because although 
a clever man he was a mere critic and fault-finder, and 
was an endless trouble to the American general. 

Washington, holding up as best he might against all 
these reverses, and with hardly 3,000 men now left in his 
army, was forced to retreat, tie moved rapidly and cau- 
tiously, holding his little force together and watching the 
enemy. The British came on, unresisted, to Trenton and 
contemplated an advance to Philadelphia. There all was 
panic, and the people began to leave the city. In New 
Jersey many persons entered the British lines to accept 
Howe's amnesty, but this movement, which might easily 
have gathered fatal proportions in the terror and depres- 
sion which then reigned, was stopped by the action of 
the British themselves. Parties of British and Hessian 
soldiers roamed over the country, burned and pillaged 
houses, killed non-combatants, ravished women, and car- 
ried off young girls. These outrages made the people 



In COUNCIL of SAFETY? 

Philadelphia, December 8, 1776. 

S I R, 

np HERE is certain intelligence of General Howe's army being 
yelterday on its march from Brunfwick to Princetown, -which puts it 
beyond a doubt that he intends for this city. — Thii glorious oppor- 
tunity of fignalizing himfelf in defence of our country, and fecuring 
the Rights of America forever, will be feized by every roan who has 
a fpark of patriotic fire in his bofom. We entreat you to march 
the Militia under your command with all poffible expedition to this 
city, and bring with you as many waggons as you can poflibly pro- 
cure, which youare hereby authorized to imprefs, if they cannot be 
hadotherwife — Delay not a moment, it may be fatal and fubjeftyou 
and all you hold moft dear to the -ruffian hands of the enemy, whofe 
cruelties are without diftincVion and unequalled. 

By Order of the Council, 
DAVID RITTENHOUSE, Vice-Pre{ident. 

fatbe COLONELS or COMMANDING 
OFFICERS of the refpeStive Battalions cf 
this Statb, 

TWO O'CLOCK, P.M. 

THE Enemy are at Trenton, and all the City Militia are 
marched to meet them. 

Rcduadfrom a broadsidt issued by the Council cf Safety 



TRENTON AND PRINCETON 207 

desperate, and they stopped seeking amnesty and took 
up arms. 

All this alarm, moreover, fortunately came to nothing. 
The winter was so advanced that the British decided not 
to go to Philadelphia, where the panic nevertheless contin- 
ued for some days, and after Washington had been forced 
to cross to the west bank of the Delaware, Congress, 
thoroughly frightened, adjourned to Baltimore. Before 
going, however, they passed a resolution giving Washing- 
ton " full power to order and direct all things relative to 
the department and to the operation of the war." Thus 
they put all that was left of the Revolution into his hands 
and made him dictator. They could not have done a 
wiser act, but they were imposing a terrible burden upon 
their general. 

Never, indeed, did a dictator find himself in greater 
straits. In all directions he had been sending for men while 
by every method he sought to hold those he already had. 
Yet, as fast as he gathered in new troops others left him, 
for the bane of short enlistments poisoned everything. He 
was not only fighting a civil war, but he had to make his 
armv as he fought, and even for that he had only these 
shifting sands to build on. " They come," he wrote of the 
militia, "you cannot tell when, and act you cannot tell 
where, consume vour provisions, waste your stores, and 
leave you at last at a critical moment." He was as near 
desperation as he ever came in his life. We can read it 
all now in his letters, but he showed nothing of it to his 
men. Schuyler, always faithful, sent him some troops. 
Sullivan, too, came with those whom Lee had tried to lead, 
and then it was found that the terms of these very troops 
were expiring and that by the New Year Washington 



208 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

would be left with only fifteen hundred men, although 
at the moment he had between five and six thousand still 
with him and in outlying detachments. Opposed to him 
were the British, 30,000 strong, with head-quarters in New 
York, and strong divisions cantoned in the New Jersey 
towns. Outnumbered six to one, ill provided in every 
way, and with a dissolving army, it was a terrible situation 
to face and conquer. But Washington rose to the height 
of the occasion. Under the strain his full greatness came 
out. No more yielding to councils now, no more modest 
submission of his own opinion to that of others. A lesser 
man, knowing that the British had suspended operations, 
would have drawn his army together and tried to house and 
recruit it through the winter. Washington, with his firm 
grasp of all the military and political conditions, knew that 
he ought to fight, and determined to do so. He accordingly 
resolved to attack Trenton, where Colonel Rahl was posted 
with twelve hundred Hessians. To assure success, he 
made every arrangement for other attacks to be combined 
with that of his own force, and they all alike came to 
nothing. Putnam was to come up from Philadelphia, and 
did not move. Ewing was to cross near Trenton, but 
thought it a bad night, and gave it up. Gates had already 
departed from Bristol, whence he was to support Wash- 
ington, and had gone after Congress to get support for 
himself. Cadwalader came down to the river, thought 
that it was running too fiercely, and did not cross. They 
all failed. Hut Washington did not fail. Neither river 
nor storm could turn him, for he was going to light. On 
the night of Christmas he marched down to the Delaware 
with twenty-four hundred men, who left bloody footprints 
behind them on the snow. The boats were reach'. 




WASHINGTON'S TROOPS DISEMBARKING ON THE TRENTON SHORE OF THE 

DEL A 11 'A RE R/l 'ER. 



TRENTON AND PRINCETON 



211 



Glover's Marblehead fishermen manned them, and through 
floating ice, against a strong current, in the bitter cold, the 
troops were ferried over. It was four o'clock before they 
were formed on the Jersey side. They were late in land- 
ing, they had still six miles to march and a driving storm 
of sleet and snow beat in their faces. Washington 
formed his little force in two columns, one under Greene, 








THE POINT AT WHICH WASHINGTON CROSSED THE DELAWARE RIVER. 

(As it no-.o appears.) 

one under Sullivan. As they marched rapidly onward 
Sullivan sent word that the muskets were wet and could 
not be fired. "Tell your General," said Washington, "to 
use the bayonet, for the town must be taken." So they 
pressed forward, the gray winter light slowly brightening 
around them. 

In the town to which they were bound all was comfort. 
While the Americans had been rowing across a swollen 
river amid floating ice and marching with blood-stained 



212 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

steps through storm and darkness, the Hessians had been 
celebrating a hearty German Christmas. They had ca- 
roused late and without fear. Rahl had been warned that 
Washington was planning an attack, but contempt for 
their foe was again uppermost in the British councils, and 
he laughed and paid no heed. From their comfortable 
slumbers and warm beds, with the memories of their 
Christmas feasting still with them, these poor Germans 
were roused to meet a fierce assault from men ragged, in- 
deed, but desperate, with all the courage of their race ris- 
ing high in the darkest hour, and led by a great soldier 
who meant to fight. 

Washington and Greene came down the Pennington 
road driving the pickets before them. As they advanced 
they heard the cheers of Sullivan's men, as with Stark in 
the van they charged up from the river. The Hessians 
poured out from their barracks, were forced back by a 
fierce bayonet charge, and then, trying to escape by the 
Brunswick road, were cut off by Hand's riflemen, thrown 
forward for that purpose by Washington. Rahl, half- 
dressed, tried to rally his men, and was shot down. It 
was all over in less than an hour. The well-aimed blow 
had been struck so justly and so fiercely that the Hessians 
had no chance. About two hundred escaped ; some thirty 
were killed, and nine hundred and eighteen, with all their 
cannon, equipage, and plunder, surrendered at discretion 
as prisoners of war. The Americans lost two killed and 
six wounded. • 

The news of the victory spread fast. To convince the 
people of what had happened, the Hessian prisoners were 
marched through the streets of Philadelphia, and a Hes- 
sian flag was sent to Baltimore to hang in the Hall of 



THE SURPRISE AT TRENTON. 
The Hessians poured out from their barracks but were forced back by a fieri,- bayonet charge. 



TRENTON AND PRINCETON 



215 



Congress. The spirits of the people rose with a great re- 
bound. The cloud of depression which rested upon the 
country was lifted, and hope was again felt everywhere. 
Troops came in from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and 
the New England men agreed to stay on after the expi- 
ration of their term of enlistment. 




MlTaS 




t T,,, 

OLD KING STREET (NO II' WARREN STREET), TRENTON. 

On the right is a building which -was occupied by the Hessians. On the site 0/ the monument, in the 
background, was stationed the American artillery, which commanded the street and Queen Street, along which 
the Hessians were quartered. 

The blow struck by Washington fell heavily upon the 
British. Even with their powerful army they could not 
afford to lose a thousand men at a stroke, nor would their 
prestige bear such sudden disaster. It was clear even to 
the sluggish mind of Howe that the American Revolution 
was not over, and that Washington and an American 
army still kept the field. Trenton must be redeemed, and 
they determined to finish the business at once. 



v\ . f 



4 



If 



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K 



J X" 



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a v 















\ ■: 5 



TRENTON AND PRINCETON 217 

Washington with his fresh troops moved first, and re- 
occupied Trenton. Cornwallis set out against him with 
7,000 men on December 30th. He outnumbered Wash- 
ington, had a perfect equipment, and intended to destroy 
his opponents. As he marched from Princeton on Janu- 
ary 2d, the Americans, under Hand, Scott, and Forrest, 
fought him at every step, falling back slowly and disput- 
ing every inch of the ground, as Washington had directed. 
It was noon before they reached Shabbakong Creek, when 
two hours were consumed in crossing the stream. Then 
came a fight at Trenton, where they suffered severely from 
the American fire, but when they charged, the Americans, 
having but few bayonets, gave way, retreated from the town 
and joined the main army, which held a strong position on 
the south side of the Assanpink. The British opened a 
heavy cannonade and at once made an attempt to cross the 
bridge, which was repulsed. Many officers urged a gen- 
eral and renewed attack, but the short winter day was 
drawing to a close, and Cornwallis decided to wait until 
morning. Washington had worn out the day with stub- 
born skirmishing, for he had no intention of fighting a 
pitched battle with his ill-armed men, inferior in numbers 
to their well-equipped opponents, who would receive rein- 
forcements in the morning". Cornwallis had given him all 
he wanted, which was time, a gift constantly conferred on 
Washington by the British generals. He had checked the 
enemy all day, and he had now the night in which to act. 
So he set the men to work on intrenchments, lighted 
camp-fires along the river-bank, and having convinced 
Cornwallis that he would be there in the morning, he 
marched off with his whole army at midnight, leaving his 
fires burning. Cornwallis had left all his stores at Bruns- 



218 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



wick, and three regiments of foot and three companies of 
horse at Princeton. Thither then Washington was march- 
ing that winter night. He meant to strike his superior 
enemy another blow at a weak point. By daybreak he 
was near Princeton, and moved with the main army 
straight for the town, while Mercer was detached with three 
hundred men to destroy the bridge which gave the most 



fc> J v 




* mm 



■ '■■' V 



''fTcJi 



QUAKER MEETING-HOUSE, NEAR PRINCETON. 
Near which Washington formed his troops before the battle. 

direct connection with Cornwallis. The enemy had 
started at sunrise, and one regiment was already over the 
bridge when they saw the Americans. Colonel Mawhood 
at once recrossed the bridge, and both Americans and 
English made for some high commanding ground. The 
Americans reached the desired point fust, and a sharp 
light ensued. The American rifles did great execution, 
but without bayonets they could not stand a charge. 
Mercer was mortally wounded, and his men began to re- 
treat. As Mawhood advanced, he came upon the main 



TRENTON AND PRINCETON 



221 



American army, marching rapidly to the scene of action. 
The new Pennsylvania militia in the van wavered under 
the British fire, and began to give way. Washington for- 
getting, as he was too apt to do, his position, his impor- 
tance, and everything but the fight, rode rapidly to the 
front, reined his horse within thirty yards of the enemy, 
and called to his men to stand firm. The wavering 
ceased, the Americans advanced, the British halted, and 




STONY BROOK BRIDGE, NEAR PRINCETON 
The .-tnur nans destroyed it to cut off the pursuing British; 

built IJQ2. 



Stony Hrook. 
■ 
40 Miles to Phil- 
54 Miles to N.York. 



then gave way. The Seventeenth Regiment was badly 
cut up, broken, and dispersed. The other two fled into 
the town, made a brief stand, gave way again, and were 
driven in rout to Brunswick. Washington broke down 
the bridges and, leaving Cornwallis, who had discovered 
that he had been outgeneralled, to gaze at him from the 
other side of the Millstone and of Stony Brook, moved 
off" to Somerset Court-house, where he stopped to rest his 
men, who had been marching and fighting for eighteen 
hours. It was too late to reach the magazines at Bruns- 



222 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



wick, but the work was done. The British suffered se- 
verely in the fighting of January 2d, although we have no 
statistics of their losses. But on January 3d at Princeton 
they lost nearly four hundred men in killed, wounded, and 
prisoners, and their detachment at that point was shattered 



i 



> 




Kfee*,^, 



'■:'■«-. 







^^ 



>m 




HOl'SF AND ROOM IN 

WHICH GENERAL 

MERCER DIED. 

At the le/'t 0/ tlie house is the mon- 
nent recently erected to Mer- 
cer's memory. 



and dispersed. Cornwallis gave up his plan of immedi- 
ately crushing and destroying the American army, stopped 
his pursuit, withdrew all his men to Amboy and Bruns- 
wick, contracted his lines, and decided to allow the efface- 
lncnt of the American army to wait until spring. 

The Trenton and Princeton campaign was a very re- 
markable one, both from a military and a political point 



TRENTON AND PRINCETON 223 

of view. Washington found himself, after a series of de- 
feats and after a long retreat, which, however skilfully 
managed, was still retreat, face to face with an enemy out- 
numbering him in the proportion of six to one. In little 
more than a week, in the dead of winter, with a dwindling 
army of raw troops shifting and changing under his hand 
through the pernicious system of short enlistments, he had 
assumed the offensive and won two decisive victories. 
He had struck his vastly superior foe twice with superior 
numbers on his own part at the point of contact, so that 
he made his victory, so far as was humanly possible, sure 
beforehand. With a beaten and defeated army operating 
against overwhelming odds, he had inflicted upon the 
enemv two severe defeats. No greater feat can be per- 
formed in war than this. That which puts Hannibal at 
the head of all great commanders was the fact that he 
won his astonishing victories under the same general con- 
ditions. There was one great military genius in Europe 
when Washington was fighting this short campaign in 
New Jersey — Frederick of Prussia. Looking over the 
accounts of the Trenton and Princeton battles, he is re- 
ported to have said that it was the greatest campaign of 
the century. The small numbers engaged did not blind 
the victor of Rossbach and Leuthen. He did not mean 
that the campaign was great from the number of men in- 
volved or the territory conquered, but great in its concep- 
tion, and as an illustration of the highest skill in the art of 
war under the most adverse conditions. So, in truth, it 
was. Washington was, by nature, a great soldier, and 
after the manner of his race, he fought best when the tide 
of fortune seemed to set most strongly against him. He 
had complete mastery of the whole military situation, and 



224 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



knew exactly what he meant to do while his opponents 
were fumbling about without any idea, except that the 
Americans were beaten and that they must crush the 
audacious general who would not stay beaten. This per- 
fect knowledge of all the conditions, including the capac- 




»* 



NASSAU HALL, PRINCETON, ERECTED 1736. 

Seized by the British in rjyb ; retaken by Americans at the Battle of Princeton, y<im<ary 3, IJ77. Here 

met, from June 26. tyi to V vernier /, /-■.-, the < ontinetttal < i here General Washington rt i 

itefnl acknowledgments 0/ Congress for his services in establishing the independence 0/ the United 

States. 



ity of the generals opposed to him, combined with celer- 
ity of movement and the power of inspiring his men, were 
the causes of Washington's success. And this is onlv 
saying, in a roundabout way, that Washington, when the 
pressure was hardest, possessed and displayed military 
genius of a high order. 

But there was another side than the purely military one 



TRENTON AND PRINCETON 225 

to this campaign, which showed that Washington was a 
statesman as well as a soldier. The greatest chiefs in war 
ouarht also to he great statesmen. Some few of them in 
the world's history have combined both state and war craft, 
but these are on the whole exceptions, and Washington 
was one of the exceptions. He not only saw with abso- 
lute clearness the whole military situation, and knew just 
what he meant to do and could do, but he understood the 
political situation at home and abroad as no one else then 
understood it. During the eighteen months which had 
passed since he took command, he had dealt with Congress 
and all the State governments and had gauged their strength 
and their weakness. He had struggled day after day with 
the defects of the army as then constituted. The difficulties 
to be met were known to him as to no one else ; he had 
watched and studied popular feeling and was familiar with 
all its states and currents. He had seen the rush of the 
first uprising of the people, and had witnessed the power 
of this new force which had invaded Canada, seized Ti- 
conderoga, and driven British armies and fleets from Bos- 
ton and Charleston. But living as he did among difficulties 
and facing facts, he also knew that the first victorious rush 
was but a beginning, that a reaction was sure to come, 
and that the vital question was whether the war could be 
sustained through the period of reaction until the armed 
people could arise again, more soberly, less enthusiastically 
than before, but disciplined and with set purpose deter- 
mined to win by hard, slow, strenuous fighting. The first 
rush passed. The inevitable defeats came in New York. 
The period of reaction set in deeper and more perilous 
perhaps than even Washington anticipated. If he closed 
his campaign in defeat and retreat, the popular spirit upon 



226 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

which he relied would not probably have an opportunity 
to revive, and the American Revolution would never see 
another spring. After the retreat up the Hudson, the loss 
of New York, and the steady falling back in New Jersey, 
Europe would conclude that the moment England really 
exerted herself, the rebellion had gone down before her 
arms, and all hopes of foreign aid and alliance would be 
at an end. Without a striking change in the course of 
the war, the cause of the American people was certainly 
lost abroad and probably ruined at home. This was the 
thought which nerved Washington to enter upon that 
desperate winter campaign. He must save the Revolu- 
tion in the field, before the people, and in the cabinets of 
Europe. He must light and win, no matter what the 
odds, and he did both. 

The result shows how accurately he had judged the 
situation. After Trenton and Princeton the popular spirit 
revived, and the force of the armed people began to stir 
into a larger and stronger life. The watchers in Europe 
doubted now very seriously England's ability to conquer 
her colonists, and began to look on with an intense and 
selfish interest. The American people awoke suddenly to 
the fact that they had brought forth a great leader, and 
they turned to him as the embodiment of all their hopes 
and aspirations. The democratic movement destined to 
such a great future had passed from the first stage of vic- 
torious confidence to the depths of doubt and reaction, 
and now after Princeton and Trenton it began to mount 
again. Congress had given all power into the hands of 
Washington, and left the united colonies for the time 
being without civil government. Washington took up 
the burden in his strong hands in the darkest hour, and 



TRENTON AND PRINCETON 227 

bore it without flinching. All that was left of the Ameri- 
can Revolution during that Christmas week was with 
Washington and his little army. How they fared in those 
wintry marches and sharp battles, in storm and ice and 
snow, chilled by the bitter cold, we know. The separation 
of the North American Colonies from the mother-country 
was probably inevitable. It surely would have come soon- 
er or later, either in peace or war. But it is equally cer- 
tain that the successful Revolution which actually made 
the United States independent, was saved from ruin by 
George Washington in the winter of 1776. 



A 



CHAPTER X 

THE BURGOYNE CAMPAIGN 

LONG the line of the Hudson alone was it possible 
to separate one group of colonies from the rest. 
That line reached from the sea on the south to 
the British possessions in Canada on the north. Once in 
full control of it the British would not only be masters of 
New York, but they would cut off New England from the 
other colonies. Nowhere else could this be done. At 
any point on the long Atlantic coast they might seize sea- 
ports or even overrun one or more colonies ; but along the 
Hudson alone could they divide the colonies, and by divid- 
ing, hopelessly cripple them. It required no very great 
intelligence to perceive this fact, and the British Ministry 
acted on it from the start. Carleton descended from Can- 
ada in the summer of [776; while Howe was to advance 
from the city and, driving the Americans before him, was to 
unite with the northern army and thus get the control of 
tin- two long lakes and of the great river of New York. 
Carleton, who was almost the only efficient officer in the 
British service, did his part fairly well. He came down tin- 
lakes to Crown Point, which he captured and advanced as 
far as Ticonderoga. Thence, hearing nothing from the 
south, lie was obliged, bv the season and by his victory over 

Arnold at Valcour, which cost him so dear and so heavily, 

228 



THE BURGOYNE CAMPAIGN 229 

to withdraw. Howe, on his side, proceeded to force back 
the Americans, and, having driven them some thirty miles 
when he needed to cover nearly four hundred, he suddenly 
retraced his steps and captured Fort Washington, a seri- 
ous loss at the moment to the Americans, but of no perma- 
nent effect whatever on the fortunes of the Revolution. 
The essential and great object was sacrificed to one which 
was temporary and unessential. Howe was incapable of 
seeing the vital point. Unenterprising and slow, he was 
baffled and delayed by Washington until summer had gone 
and autumn was wearing away into winter. 

Thus failed the first campaign for the Hudson, but 
even while it was going to wreck, the Ministry — deeply 
impressed with the importance of the prize — were making 
ready for a second attempt. This time the main attack 
was to be made from the north, and Sir Henry Clinton 
was to come up the river and meet the victorious army 
advancing from Canada. In order to insure success at the 
start, the Ministry set aside Carleton, the efficient and ex- 
perienced, and intrusted this important expedition to an- 
other. The new commander was Sir John Burgoyne. A 
brief statement of who he was and what he had done will 
show why he was selected to lead in the most serious and 
intelligent attempt made by England to conquer America 
— an attempt upon which the fate of the Revolution turned 
when success meant the division of the colonies, and defeat 
a French alliance with the new States. Burgoyne came 
of a good family, and had made a runaway marriage with 
the daughter of Lord Derby. As matters went then, these 
were sufficient reasons for the appointment ; but in justice 
to Burgoyne, it must be said that he had other attributes 
than those of birth and marriage. He was a member of 



230 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

Parliament and a clever debater ; a man of letters, and an 
agreeable writer ; a not unsuccessful verse-maker and play- 
wright ; a soldier who had shown bravery in the war in 
Portugal ; a gentleman and a man of fashion. He had 
not given any indication of capacity for the command of 
an army, but this was not thought of importance. Let it 
be added that, although as a soldier he was the worst beat- 
en of the British generals, as a man he was much the best, 
for he was clever, agreeable, and well-bred. 

Having selected their commander, the Ministry cordi- 
ally supported him. With Lord George Germain, whose 
own prowess in battle made him think the Americans not 
only rebels but cowards, the campaign was planned. In it 
the Indians, who had been held back by the judicious 
Carleton, were to play a large part, and Canadians also 
were to be enlisted. More Germans were purchased, and 
no effort was spared to give the new General everything 
he wanted. There was only one oversight. Lord George 
Germain put the orders directing Howe to join Burgoyne 
in a pigeon-hole, went off to the country and forgot them. 
Thus it happened that Howe did not receive these some- 
what important instructions until August 16th. Hence, 
some delay in marching north to Burgoyne, the results of 
which will appear later. But this was mere forgetfulness. 
The Ministry, with this trivial exception of Howe's or- 
ders, meant to give and did give Burgoyne everything he 
wanted. So it came to pass that on June 13th at St. 
Johns, when Burgoyne hoisted his flag on the Radeau, and 
opened his campaign, he found himself at the head of a 
line army of nearly 8,000 men, composed of 4,135 English, 
3,116 Germans, 503 Indians, and 148 Canadians. They 
were thoroughly equipped and provided, and the artillery 



THE BURGOYNE CAMPAIGN 



! 3i 



was of the best. Another force of 1,000 men under 
Colonel St. Leger was sent to the west to reduce Fort 
Stanwix ; this done, he 
was to descend the 
Mohawk Valley and 
join the main army at 
Albany. The two ex- 
peditions were a seri- 
ous, well - supported, 
and well-aimed attack 
at a vital point, and if 
successful meant un- 
told disaster to the 
American cause. 

All b e g a n well, 
with much rhetoric 
and flourish of trum- 
pets. A week after 
hoisting his flag, on 
June 20th, Burgoyne 
issued a proclamation 
in which he indulged 
his literary propensi- 
ties, and no doubt en- 
joyed highly the pleas- 
ure of authorship. The 
King, he said, was just 
and clement, and had 
directed "that Indians 
be employed." The 
Americans he declared to be " wilful outcasts," and in 
the " consciousness of Christianity and the honor of sol- 




J. HAfir NUTUEY 



232 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 




diership " he warned them that the messengers of justice 
and wrath awaited them on the field, together with devasta- 
tion, famine, and every con- 
comitant horror. Having 
thus appealed to even' Amer- 
ican to turn out and fight him, 
he announced in general or- 
ders that " this army must not 
retreat," and took his way 
down Lake Champlain, the 
Indians in their war-paint lead- 
ing" the van in their canoes, 
and the British and Germans 
following in a large flotilla 
with hands playing and 1 tan- 
ners flying. 

At the start all went well 
and victoriously. Schuyler, 
in command of the northern 
department, had been laboring with energy to repair 
the lines of defence broken by Carleton's invasion of 
the previous summer, and make ready for the coming 
of the new attack. But he had been unsupported by 
Congress and had been manfully struggling with really 
insuperable difficulties. Instead of the proper garrison 
of 5,000 men at Ticonderoga, there were barely 2,500 
ill-armed continental troops, and nine hundred militia, a 
force far too small to maintain a proper line of works. 
The British at once seized some unoccupied and com- 
manding heights and opened a plunging fire on the 
American position with such effect that St. Clair, who 
was in command at Ticonderoga, decided that the place 



GENERAL PHILIP SCHUYLER. 

From the painting by Trumbull ( i-<i?) in the 

:■•■ Art Gallery. (Said to be the 

1 portrait of General Schuyler now in ex- 

iit cue.) 



THE BURGOYNE CAMPAIGN 



233 



was untenable, and on the night of July 5th abandoned it. 
He sent the women and wounded under the protection of 
Colonel Long and six hundred troops by boat to Skenes- 
boro' where they were attacked and the American flotilla 
destroyed. Long thereupon withdrew to Fort Anne, and 
the next day fought a good action there, but being out- 
numbered, he abandoned the position and retreated to Fort 




RUINS OF OLD F 



'/■KICK' CROWN POINT— AT THE PRESENT TIME. 



Edward, where he joined Schuyler. Meantime, St. Clair, 
assailed on his retreat by the British, with whom his rear- 
guard fought stubbornly, made his way also to Fort Ed- 
ward and joined Schuyler on the 12th. The united Amer- 
ican force numbered less than 5,000 men, ill-armed and 
unprovided in every way. Schuyler, however, faced the 
situation bravely and with no sign of flinching or panic, 
did at once and effectively the wisest thing possible. 



234 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



The British had allied themselves with the Indians, Schuy- 
ler made the wilderness the ally of the Americans. He 
destroyed all the wood roads, burnt the bridges, filled 
up the practicable waterways with logs and stones, and 
stripped the country of cattle and all provisions. Doing 
this diligently and thoroughly, he fell back slowly to Fort 
Miller, ruining the road as he passed, and thence to Still- 
water, where he intrenched himself and awaited reinforce- 




-Tsy.'irw JW-^^r 'r 



Blft ' S3 ■ 







THE HOME OF GENERAL PHILIP SCHUYLER AT OLD SARATOGA, NEAR 
SCHUYLERVILLE. 

ments, Arnold in the meantime having joined him with 
the artillery. 

Burgoyne, on the other hand, elated by easy victory, 
sent home a messenger with exulting tidings of his success, 
when, in reality, his troubles were just beginning. The 
country sparsely settled, and hardly opened at all, sank 
back under Schuyler's treatment to an utter wilderness. 
The British in New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts 
had been operating in a long-settled region where the 
roads were good. Now they were in a primeval forest, 



THE BURGOYNE CAMPAIGN 



235 




with every foot-path and track destroyed, every bridge 
burned, every creek choked. Burgoyne had to cut a 
new road, build forty bridges, 
and reopen Wood Creek. He 
consumed twenty-four days in 
marching twenty - six miles, 
from Skenesboro' to Fort Ed- 
ward, and after arriving there, 
on July 30th, he was obliged 
to wait until August 15th for 
the arrival of his artillery and 
heavy ammunition from Lake 
George. 

Even while his jubilant 
message was on its way to 
London, the wilderness, un- 
der Schuyler's wise manage- 
ment, had dealt him this deadly blow of fatal delay. Nor 
was this all. The employment of the Indians, who had 
been ravaging and scalping from the day the British 
crossed the frontier, had roused the people of the north 
as nothing else could have done. The frontiersmen and 
pioneers rose in all directions, for the scalping of wounded 
soldiers awakened in the Americans a fierce spirit of re- 
venge, which would stop at no danger. The idea that the 
Indians would terrify the Americans was a foolish dream. 
Nothing in reality was calculated to make them fight so 
hard. Perhaps even Burgoyne may have had a glimmer- 
ing of this truth when two of the allies of his clement 
King tomahawked and scalped Miss McCrea. There was 
nothing unusual about the deed, but the unfortunate girl 
happened to be a loyalist herself and betrothed to a loval- 



GENERAL JOHN BURGOYXE. 
n an engraving (after tin- fainting by Gard- 
ner) published m 27, • i. 



236 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



ist in Burgoyne's cam}), whither she was travelling under 
the escort of the Indians who murdered her. Thus Bur- 
goyne's invasion, his Indians, and his proclamations 
aroused the country, and Schuyler's treatment of forest 
and stream gave the delay necessary to allow the people to 











V 






THE RAVINE AT ORISKANY, NEW YORK. 



The till/ fl'ii en thi ding at the ti'm 

■ 1 and attat 1. 1 

U>Ui. 



fndtan a Hies lay in ambush on the 
'icans as they crossed on the road in the 



rise in arms. Even while Burgoyne was toiling over his 
twentv-six miles of wilderness, the mischief had begun. 

The first blow came from the west. Much was ex- 
pected from the strong expedition directed against Fort 
Stanwix, and much was staked upon it. When St. Leger 
arrived thereon August 2d, with his Indians and loyalists 
as allies, he summoned it to surrender. Colonel Ganse- 




.'.: 



_J 



THE BURGOYNE CAMPAIGN 239 

voort refused, and the British began a regular siege. Here, 
too, all that was needed was time. The hardy pioneers of 
that frontier county rallied under General Herkimer, and 
to the number of eight hundred marched with him to re- 
lieve Gansevoort. When within eight miles of Fort Stan- 
wix, Herkimer halted and sent a messenger to the fort 
with a request that on his arrival three guns should be 

" ■ 1 1 

l ; m 



GENERAL HERKIMER'S HOUSE AT DANUBE, NEAR LITTLE FALLS, NEW 

YORK. 

In the family burying ground is Herkimer's grave, marked by the flag, to tin right is the base of the monu- 
ment recently erected to his memory. 

fired and a sortie made. Impatient of delay, Herkimer's 
officers would not wait the signal, and unwisely insisted on 
an immediate advance, which led them into an ambush of 
the British and their Indian allies. Although taken at a dis- 
advantage, this was a kind of warfare which the Americans 
thoroughly understood, and a desperate hand-to-hand and 
tree-to-tree fight began. Herkimer was mortally wounded 
earlv in the action, but the brave old man had himself 
propped up with his saddle against a tree, and continued 



240 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 







1 




to issue his orders and 
direct the battle. This 
savage fighting went on 
for live hours, and then 
at last the guns were 
heard from the fort. 
Colonel Willet dashed 
out on the British camp 
with two hundred and 
fifty men, destroyed 
some of the intrench- 
ments, and captured 
prisoners, camp equi- 
page, and five flags. He could not get through to Her- 
kimer, but the Indians, hearing the firing in their rear, 
retreated, and wen- soon followed by the loyalists and 



oi.n stone cirrRcn at German flats 

IX Till: MOHAWK VALLEY. 

If tvas built in /- 
fence of Fort ll.rki. 



THE Bl'kCOYNE CAMPAIGN 



241 



regular troops, leaving- Herkimer master of the field and 
victor in the hard-fought backwoods fight of Oriskany. 

St. Leger, despite this heavy check, still clung to his in- 
trenchments, and on August 7th again summoned the fort 
to surrender. Gansevoort, with the live British standards 
flying below the new American flag, made from strips of 
an overcoat and a petticoat, contemptuously refused. The 
besiegers renewed their attack in vain, and were easily 
repulsed. Then came rumors of Arnold's advance to the 
relief of the fort ; the Indians fled, and St. Leger, deserted 
by these important allies, was forced to raise the siege. 
On August 2 2d he abandoned his works in disorder, leav- 
ing his artillery and camp equipage, and made a disorderly 
retreat to Canada, broken and beaten. The stubborn re- 
sistance of Gansevoort and the gallant fight of Herkimel 




CASTLE CHURCH, NEAR DANUBE, IN THE MOHAWK VALLEY. 

Built as a Mission for the Indians by Sir William Johnson. Tin- notorious Rra>tt ~ras taught here 
'■v ///•■ Missionaries, and lived in a house a little to the north of the church. 



242 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 




had triumphed. Arnold was able to rejoin Schuyler with 
the news that the valley of the Mohawk was saved. The 

western expedition of the north- 
ern invasion had broken down 
and failed. 

While St. Leger was thus go- 
ing to wreck in the west, Bur- 
goyne's own situation was grow- 
ing difficult and painful. Provi- 
sions were falling short, and the 
army was becoming straitened for 
food, for Schuyler had stripped 
the country to good purpose, and 
to the difficulties of moving the 
army was now added that of feed- 
ing it. Bad reports, too, came 
from New E n g 1 a n d . It ap- 
peared that the invasion had 
roused the people there to defend their homes against Ind- 
ians and white men alike. Stark had raised his standard 
at Charlestown, on the Connecticut River, and the militia 
were pouring in to follow the sturdy soldier of Bunker 
Hill and Trenton. 

Nevertheless, food must be had, and these gathering 
farmers, who seemed disposed to interfere, must be dis- 
persed. So Burgovne, on August nth, sent Colonel 
Baum, with five hundred and fifty Hessians and British, 
and fifty Indians, to raid the country, lift the cattle, and 
incidentally repress the rebellious inhabitants of the New 
Hampshire grants. Four days later he sent Colonel Brev 
mann, with six hundred and forty-two Brunswickers, to 
support the first detachment, for Baum had asked for re- 



GENERAL JOHN STARK. 

From a painting ( of ter Trumbull) by ('. D 
Tenney, at the State Capitol at Con 
cord, X. II. 



THE BURGOYNE CAMPAIGN 243 

inforcements. Apparently, the task before him looked 
more serious than he anticipated. Still he kept on stead- 
ily, and on August 13th encamped on a hill about four 
miles from Bennington, in the present State of Vermont, 
and proceeded to intrench himself. This was an unusual 
proceeding for a rapid and desolating raid, but it was now 
apparent that, instead of waiting to be raided, the New 
Englanders were coming to meet their foe. 

As soon as Stark heard of the advance of Baum, he 
marched at once against him with the fifteen hundred men 
he had gathered from New Hampshire and Massachusetts, 
disregarding the orders he had received meantime to join 
the main army under Schuyler. On August 14th he was 
within a mile of the Indo-Germanic camp, but could not 
draw them out to battle. The 15th it rained heavily, and 
Stark kept up a constant skirmishing, while the Hessians 
worked on their intrenchments. 

August 1 6th was fair and warm, and Stark, suspecting 
the approach of reinforcements to the enemy, determined 
to storm the hill, a rather desperate undertaking for undis- 
ciplined farmers, armed only with rifles and destitute of 
side-arms or bayonets. Nevertheless, it was possible, and 
Stark meant to try. Early in the day he sent five hun- 
dred men, under Nichols and Herrick, to the rear of the 
Hessian position. Baum, honest German that he was 
noticed small parties of Americans making their way tow- 
ard the rear of his intrenchments ; but he had never seen 
soldiers except in uniform, and he could not imagine that 
these farmers, in their shirt-sleeves and without bayonets 
or equipment, were fighting men. He had never con- 
ceived the idea of an armed people. In truth, the phe- 
nomenon was new, and it is not surprising that Baum did 



244 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

not understand it. He concluded that these stragglers 
were peasants flocking to the support of their King's 
hired troops, and let them slip by. Thus Stark success- 
fully massed his live hundred men in the rear of the Brit- 
ish forces. Then he made a feint, and under cover of it 
moved another body of two hundred to the right. This 
done, he had his men in position, and was ready to attack. 
He outnumbered the enemy more than two to one, but 
his men were merely militia, and without bayonets — a 
badly equipped force for an assault. The British, on the 
other hand, were thoroughly disciplined, regular troops, in- 
trenched and with artillery. The advantage was all theirs, 
for they had merely to hold their ground. But Stark 
knew his men. The wild fighting blood of his Scotch- 
Irish ancestors was up, and he gave the word. The 
Americans pressed forward, using their rifles with deadly 
effect. The Indian allies of the King, having no illusions 
as to American frontiersmen in their shirt-sleeves and 
armed with rifles, slipped off early in the fray, while the 
British and Hessians stood their ground doggedly and 
bravely. The Americans swarmed on all sides. They 
would creep or run up to within ten yards of the works, 
pick off the artillerymen and fall back. For two hours 
the fight raged hotly, the Americans closing in more and 
more, and each assault becoming more desperate than the 
last. Stark, who said the firing was a "continuous roar," 
was everywhere among his men. At last, begrimed with 
powder and smoke almost beyond recognition, he led them 
in a final charge. They rushed over the works, and beat 
lown the men at the guns with clubbed rifles. Baum 
ordered his men to charge with the bayonet ; the Ameri- 
cans repulsed them ; Baum fell mortally wounded, and his 




mk 




fe;' b 

o s 

S is 



S i 

S3 

cq ~ 



THE BURGOYNE CAMPAIGN 



247 



soldiers surrendered. It was none too soon. Stark's 
judgment had been right, for Baum's men had hardly laid 
down their arms when Breymann appeared with his de- 
tachment and attacked. Under this new assault the 

Americans wav- 
ered, but Stark ral- 




CATAMOUNT TAVERN, BENNINGTON, 
I'T, THE HEAD-QUARTERS OF GEN- 
ERAL STARK AND THE COUNCIL 
OF SAFET 

(/'raw,, 



lied them, and put- 
ting in the one hun- 
dred and fifty fresh 
Vermont men, un- 
der Warner, re- 
pulsed the Bruns- 
wickers, and Brey- 
mann retreated, beaten and in haste, under cover of dark- 
ness. Another hour and he, too, would have been crushed. 
There was no strategy about the action at Bennington. 
" It was the plain shock and even play of battle;" sheer 
hard fighting, often hand to hand, and the American farm- 
ers defending their homes, and well led, proved more 



MONUMENT AVENUE, PENNINGTON, AT THE 
PRESENT TIME. 

The Battle Monument in the distance. The pedestal to the right 
marks the site of the Catamount Tavern. 



248 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

than a match for the intrenched regulars. Bennington 
showed a great advance over Bunker Hill, for here the 
Americans attacked in the open an intrenched position 
defended by artillery and carried it. The well-aimed rifles 
of the pioneer settlers of the New England hills won the 
day. The American loss was eighty-two killed and 
wounded ; the British two hundred and seven, which 
shows the superior marksmanship of Stark's men, who, as 
the assaulting force, should have suffered most. But the 
Americans also took 700 prisoners, 1,000 stand of small 
arms, and all the artillery of the British. It was a deadly 
blow to Burgoyne. The defeat of St. Leger meant the 
failure of an important part of the campaign, while Ben- 
nington crippled the main army of invasion and swept 
away at a stroke 1,000 men. 

The victories of Oriskany and Bennington inspirited the 
country. Volunteers began to come in increasing num- 
bers from New York and New England, and even from 
the extreme eastern counties of Massachusetts. Wash- 
ington, hard pressed as he was, but with characteristic 
generosity, sent Morgan's fine corps of Virginian riflemen, 
while Congress, with a wisdom which resembled that of 
Lord Germain, in setting aside Carleton, selected this mo- 
ment to supersede Schuyler, who was about to reap the 
reward of his wise prevision and steadfast coinage. The 
general they now chose for the northern army, and upon 
whom they lavished all the support, both moral and mate- 
rial, which they had withheld from Schuyler, was Horatio 
Gates, "the son of the house-keeper of the second Duke 
of Leeds." Beyond his English birth and his somewhat 
remote connection with the British peerage, Gates had no 
claim whatever to command any army. It is but just to 



THE BURGOYNE CAMPAIGN 



249 




say that his command was in practice largely nominal, hut 
it was given him solely because Congress, with colonial 
habits still strong upon them, 
were dazzled by the fact that 
he was an Englishman. It 
was a repetition of the case 
of Lee. Gates, although an 
intriguer, was more sluggish 
than Lee, less clever and less 
malignant, but it would be 
hard to say which was the 
more ineffective, or which the 
more positively h a r m f u 1 . 
Both did mischief, neither did 
good to the cause they es- 
poused. In the present in- 
stance, Gates could not do 
any fatal injury, for the armed 
people had turned out and were hunting the enemy to his 
death. But he might have led them and saved much time, 
and not lessened the final result by weakness of spirit. 

When he took command, on August 19th, Gates 
found himself at the head of an army in high spirits and 
steadily increasing in strength. After contemplating the 
situation for three weeks he marched from the mouth of 
the Mohawk to Bemis's Heights, on the west bank of 
the Hudson. There he awaited his enemy, and a very 
troubled and hard-pressed enemy it was. Burgoyne had 
been sorely hurt by the defeat at Bennington ; no more 
men came from the north ; the country had been stripped ; 
he was short of supplies, which had to be brought from 
Canada, and he could hear of no relief from the south. 



GENERAL HORATfO GATES. 



From the hitherto unpublished portrait fainted iy 
K. 1:. Pine, t^Sj. 



250 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

So he hesitated and waited until, at last, having got artil- 
lery, stores, and provisions by way of Lake George, he 
bethought him that this was an army which was not to 
retreat, and on September 13th crossed to the west bank 
of the Hudson. 

An additional reason for his doubts and fears, which 
he thus finally put aside, was that the Americans were 
threatening his line of communication. General Lincoln, 
with two thousand men, had moved to the rear of Bur- 
goyne. Thence he detached Colonel Brown with five 
hundred soldiers, and this force fell upon the outworks of 
Ticonderoga, took them, released a hundred American 
prisoners, captured nearly three hundred British soldiers 
and five cannon, and then rejoined Lincoln at their leisure. 
The net was tightening. The road to Canada was being 
closed either for succor or retreat. Yet Burgoyne kept 
on, and on September 18th, when Brown and his men 
were carrying the Ticonderoga outworks, he stopped his 
march within two miles of the American camp at Bemis's 
Heights. 

The next morning, the 19th, about eleven o'clock, the 
British army advanced in three columns. Burgoyne com- 
manded the centre ; Riedesel and Phillips, with the artil- 
lerv, were on the left ; while Fraser, commanding the 
right, swung far over in order to cover and turn the Amer- 
ican left. Gates, like Stendhal's hero, who, as he came on 
the field of Waterloo, asked the old soldier if the fighting 
then in progress was a battle, seemed to regard the British 
advance as a parade and watched it with sluggish interest 
but without giving orders. This Arnold could not stand, 
and he sent Morgan's riflemen and some light infantry to 
check Fraser. They easily scattered the loyalists and Ind 



THE BURGOYNE CAMPAIGN 



2SI 










ians, and then fell back before the main column. Ar- 
nold then changed his direction, and fresh troops having 
come up, attacked the British centre with a view of break- 
ing in between Bur- 
goyne and Fraser. The 
action thus became gen- 
eral and w as h o 1 1 y 
waged. The Americans 
attacked again and 
again, and finally broke 
the line. Burgoyne was 
only saved by Riedesel 
abandoning his post and 
coming to the support 
of the central column 
with all the artillery. 
About five o'clock 
Gates, rousing from his 
lethargy, sent Learned 
with his brigade to the 
enemy's rear. Had this been done earlier, the British army 
would have been crushed. As it was, the right moment 
had gone by. It was now too late for a decisive stroke ; 
darkness was falling, and the Americans drew off to their 
intrenchments, the enemy holding the ground they had 
advanced to in the morning, Such was the battle of 
Freeman's Farm. Had Gates reinforced Arnold or sent 
Learned forward earlier, the result would have been far 
more decisive. Without a general, led only by their 
regimental and brigade commanders, the American troops 
had come into action and fought their own battle m their 
own way as best they could. If they had been directed 



X 



- ( 



OLD BATTLE WELL ON FREEMAN'S 
FARM, AT THE PRESENT TIME. 

Here a Fierce Conflict for Possession Took Place. 



252 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



by an efficient chief, they would have ended the Biifgoyne 
campaign then and there. As it was, they inflicted a se- 
vere blow. The Americans had about 3,000 men en- 
gaged; the British about 3,500. The American loss was 
2S3 killed and wounded, and 38 missing. The British 
loss in killed and wounded, according: to their own re- 




CELLAR AT THE PRESENT TIME IN THE MARSHALL HOUSE, SCHUYLER' 
VILLE, WHICH WAS USED AS A HOSPITAL FOR THE BRITISH. 

• took refuge for six days. 



poits, was 600. Both sides fought in the open, and the 
Americans, after the first advance, attacked. They had 
few bayonets and hut little artillery, while the British had 
both in abundance, yet the disparity in the losses showed 
again the superiority of the American marksmanship and 
the deadly character of their rifle fire. 



»P!!i; ; ! 




;HHn 



THE BURGOYNE CAMPAIGN 255 

The result of the action at Freeman's Farm rejoiced 
the Americans, and fresh troops from the surrounding 
country kept coming into camp. Still Gates did nothing 
except quarrel with Arnold and relieve him from his com- 
mand. Instead of following up his advantage and attack- 
ing Burgoyne, he sat still and looked at him. This atti- 
tude, if not useful, was easy and pleasant to Gates ; but to 
Burgoyne — harassed by constant skirmishing, deserted by 
his Indians, short of provisions, and with no definite news 
of the promised relief from the south — it was impossible. 
He had heard from Clinton that a diversion was to be 
made from New York, and this tempted him to say that 
he could hold on until October 12th. Lord George Ger- 
main's orders had indeed been found in their pigeon-hole 
and finally despatched. Reinforcements also had been 
sent to Clinton, and thus stimulated, he moved out of 
New York on October 3d with a large tleet and 3,000 
troops. He easily deceived Putnam, crossed to King's 
Ferry and carried the weakly garrisoned forts — Montgom- 
ery and Clinton. Then the fleet destroyed the boom and 
chain in the river, and the Americans were compelled to 
beach and burn two frigates, which were there to defend 
the boom. This accomplished, Sir Henry Clinton, op- 
pressed by the lateness of the season, retraced his steps, 
leaving Vaughan to carry the raid as far as Kingston, 
which he burned, and then to retire, in his turn, to New 
York. This performance was what lured Burgoyne to 
stand his ground. But no amount of hope of Clinton's 
coming could sustain him indefinitely. Some of his gen- 
erals, in fact, urged retreat, forgetting that this particular 
army was not to retreat, but to advance continually. Un- 
der the pressure, however, Burgoyne determined to try 



256 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

one more fight, and, if unsuccessful, fall back behind the 
Batten Kill. 

His plan was to make a reconnoissance in force and 
with this object, at ten o'clock on October ;th, Burgoyne 
left his camp with 1,500 of his best troops and 10 pieces 
of artillery. Again he formed them in three columns, 
with Eraser on the right, Riedesel and his Brunswickers 
in the centre, and Phillips on the left. As soon as the 
British moved, Gates sent out Morgan to meet the enemy 
on the right while Learned was to oppose the central col- 
umn, and Poor, with the continentals, was to face Phillips. 
Poor opened the battle and, supported by Learned, at- 
tacked Acland's grenadiers and broke them despite their 
well-directed fire. Meantime, Morgan with his riflemen, 
and Dearborn with the light infantry, fell upon the British 
right. So fierce was this assault that Burgoyne, seeing 
that his right would be turned, ordered Fraser to fall back 
and take a new position. In doing so, Eraser was mor- 
tally wounded by a Virginian rifleman. While the wings 
were thus breaking, the Brunswickers in the centre held 
firm, and then Arnold, who was on the field merely as a 
volunteer and with no command, put himself at the head 
of his old division and led them in a succession of charges 
against the German position. The Brunswickers behaved 
well and Burgoyne exposed himself recklessly, but they 
could not stand the repeated shocks. One regiment 
broke and was rallied, only to break again. The Ameri- 
cans took eight of the ten guns, and at last the British 
were forced back to their intrenched camp, where they ral- 
lied and stood their ground. There Arnold continued his 
fierce attacks and was badly wounded. The darkness 
alone stopped the light and saved the remnants of the 



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258 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

British army, but it had been a disastrous day for Bur- 
goyne. Fraser and Breymann were both killed, and Sir 
Francis Clarke — Burgoyne's first aide. The British lost 
426 killed and wounded, 200 prisoners, nine guns, ammu- 
nition, and baggage. The Americans had about 200 
killed and wounded. 

The blow was a deadly one, and it was obvious that 
nothing now remained for the British and Germans but a 
desperate effort to retreat. After burying poor Fraser in 
the intrenchments, while the American shot tore the earth 
and whistled through the air over the grave, Burgoyne 
abandoned his sick and wounded on the next night after 
the battle and retreated through the storm to Saratoga. 
But the attempt was hopeless, and even Gates could not 
fail to conquer him now. On the 10th, when he tried to 
see if there was escape by the west bank of the Hudson, he 
found that Stark, the victor of Bennington, was at Fort 
Edward with 2,000 men. On the 1 ith the Americans scat- 
tered the British posts at the mouth of the Fishkill, capt- 
ured all their boats and nearly all their provisions. On 
the 1 2th Burgoyne was surrounded. Outnumbered and 
exposed to concentric fire, he yielded to the inevitable, 
and on the 14th sent in a flag of truce to treat for a sur- 
render. Gates demanded that the surrender be uncondi- 
tional. Burgoyne refused to consider it. Thereupon 
Gates, alarmed by rumors of the raid and village burning 
under Vaughan, instead of attacking at once, gave way 
feebly and agreed to a convention by which the British 
surrendered, but were free to go to England on agreeing 
not to serve again against America. 

The convention was an inglorious one to Gates when 
he actually held the British helpless in his grasp, but it 



THE BURGOYNE CAMPAIGN 261 

answered every practical purpose. By the convention of 
October 16, 1777, a British general with his army number- 
ing 5,791 surrendered. Eighteen hundred and fifty-six 
prisoners of war were already in the hands of the Ameri- 
cans. Including the losses in the field and in the various 
actions from Ticonderoga and Oriskany to Bennington 
and Saratoga, England had lost 10,000 men, and had sur- 
rendered at Saratoga forty-two guns and forty-six hundred 
muskets. 

The victory had been won by the rank and file, by the 
regiments and companies, for after the departure of Schuy- 
ler there was no general-in-chicf. The battles were fought 
under the lead of division commanders like Arnold, Mor- 
gan, or Poor, or else under popular chiefs like Herkimer 
and Stark. But it was the American people who had 
wrecked Burgoyne. He came down into that still unset- 
tled region of lake and mountain with all the pomp and 
equipment of European war. He brought with him Ind- 
ian allies, and the people of New York and New England 
knew well what that meant. They were not disciplined 
or uniformed, and they had no weapons except their rifles 
and hunting-knives. But they could fight and they knew 
what an Indian was, even though they had never seen a 
Hessian or a British grenadier. They rose up in Bur- 
goyne's path, and, allied with the wilderness, they began 
to fight him. Regular troops came to their support from 
Washington's army, and militia were sent by the States 
from the seaboard. Thus the Americans multiplied while 
the British dwindled. The wilderness hemmed in the 
trained troops of England and Germany, and the men, to 
whom the forests and the streams were as familiar as their 
own firesides, swarmed about them with evergrowing num.- 



262 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

bers. At last, the English army, reduced one half, beaten 
and crippled in successive engagements, ringed round by 
enemies, surrendered. Again, and more forcibly than ever, 
facts said to England's Ministers : " These Americans can 
fight ; they have been taught to ride and shoot, and look a 
stranger in the face ; they are of a righting stock ; it is not 
well in a spirit of contempt to raid their country and 
threaten their homes with Indians : if you do this thing in 
this spirit, disaster will come." As a matter of fact, disas- 
ter came, and Burgoyne's expedition, the most important 
sent by England against her revolted colonies, failed and 
went to wreck. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE RESULTS OF SARATOGA 

SARATOGA, where Burgoyne's surrender took 
place, is counted by Sir Edward Creasy among 
the fifteen decisive battles of the world. By 
this verdict the American victory comes into a very 
small and very memorable company. The world's history 
is full of battles and sieges, and among this almost count- 
less host only fifteen are deemed worthy, by an accom- 
plished historian, to take rank as decisive in the widest 
sense, and as affecting the destiny of mankind. By what 
title does Saratoga rise to this dignity ? Certainly not 
from the numbers engaged, for they w T ere comparatively 
small. The victory was complete, it is true, but an army 
of 10,000 men has been beaten and has surrendered many 
times without deciding anything, not even the issue of a 
campaign. From the military point of view the blow was 
a heavy one to England, but she has suffered much greater 
losses than this in her career of conquest and still has 
come out victorious. 

The fact is that the significance of Saratoga lies less 
in what it actually was, than in what it proved and what 
it brought to pass. It showed the fighting quality of the 
American people, and demonstrated that they were able 

to rise up around a powerful and disciplined force and 

263 



264 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

hunt it down to ruin and surrender. The prospect of 
conquering a people capable of such fighting, defended 
by three thousand miles of ocean and backed by the 
wilderness, was obviously slight. Saratoga meant, further, 
that the attempt to control the Hudson, and thus divide 
the States, had definitely failed. The enormous advantage 
of a country united for military purposes had been won, 
and the union of the new States, which, physically as well 
as politically, was essential to victory, had been secured, 
and, once secured, this meant ultimate success. Last, and 
most important of all, the surrender of Burgoyne and the 
utter wreck of his campaign convinced Europe of these 
very facts, or, in other words, assured foreign powers that 
the revolted colonies would win in the end. It required 
the keen intellect of Frederick the Great to appreciate 
Trenton and Princeton. He realized that those battles, 
flashing out from the clouds of defeat and misfortune, 
meant that the Americans had developed a great leader, 
a soldier of genius, and that under such a man a fighting 
people could not be beaten by an enemy whose base of 
supplies was 3,000 miles away. But no Frederick was 
needed to comprehend Saratoga, where there had been 
no strategy, nothing but hard, blunt fighting, ending in 
the effacement of a British army and the ruin of a cam- 
paign of vital importance. This was clear to all men in 
the despatches which announced Burgoyne's surrender, 
and the knowledge brought America supplies, money, 
and allies. Alone, the colonies could not be conquered. 
With a European alliance their victory became certain. 

To understand exactly what was wrought by the fight- 
ing in those northern forests, it is necessary to know the 
conditions existing - on the other side of the Atlantic at the 



THE RESULTS OF SARATOGA 265 

time when the men of New York and Virginia and New 
England finally brought their quarry down at Saratoga. 
The American Revolution was fought out not only in the 
field but in the Cabinets of Europe as well. The new na- 
tion not only had to win battles and sustain defeats, but 
also to gain recognition at the great tribunal of public opin- 
ion and prove its right to live. Statesmen were required 
as well as commanders of armies and captains of frigates, 
in order to break the British Empire and establish a new 
people among the nations of the earth. The statesmen 
came. They, indeed, had begun the work, for it had 
fallen to them to argue the American cause with Eng- 
land, and then to state to the world the reasons and neces- 
sity for independence. Even before this was done, how. 
ever, it had become evident to the leaders in Congress 
that the American cause, in order to succeed, must be 
recognized in Europe, and must even obtain there an ac- 
tive support. So it came about that the political leaders 
in America, after this was fairly understood, as ' a rule 
either returned to their States, where the most energetic 
assistance could be given to the Revolution, or went 
abroad to plead their country's cause in foreign lands. 
Congress sank in ability and strength in consequence, but 
as it never could have been an efficient executive body 
in any event, this was of less moment than that the high- 
est political ability of the country should be concentrated 
on the most vital points. Thus it was that the strength 
of American statesmanship, after the Declaration of In- 
dependence, instinctively turned to diplomacy as the field 
where the greatest results could be achieved, and where 
alone allies, money, and supplies could be obtained. The 
beginnings were small and modest enough, and Congress 



266 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

hesitated in this direction as long and as seriously as it did 
in regard to independence ; for foreign aid and alliance, 
as much as war, meant final separation from the mother- 
country. 

The resistance of the colonies to England had gradually 
attracted the attention of Europe. The continental gov- 
ernments generally were slow to see the importance of 
this transatlantic movement ; but the French, still smarting 
under the loss of Canada, were quick to perceive how 
much it might mean to them in the way of revenge. 
Bunker Hill roused them and riveted their attention. 
Vergennes, watching events closely and from the first 
eager to strike at England, secretly sent M. de Bon- 
vouloir, a former resident of the West Indies, to visit 
America and report. De Bonvouloir, on reaching Phila- 
delphia, had a private interview with Franklin, and re- 
ported that, although the resistance to England was deter- 
mined, the Americans hesitated to seek foreign aid. This, 
without doubt, was a true picture of the situation and of 
the state of American feeling at that time. Yet, a little 
later, in December, 1775, Congress made a first timid 
step toward outside assistance by authorizing Arthur Lee 
— then in London — to ascertain the feeling of the Euro- 
pean governments in regard to the colonies. Arthur Lee 
was one of the distinguished brothers of the well-known 
Virginian family. He was intelligent and well-educated, 
having taken a degree in medicine and then studied law 
He was an accomplished man with a good address, and 
ample knowledge of the world and of society. In ability 
he did not rise to the level of the very difficult task which 
developed before him later, and he proved to have a jeal- 
ous and quarrelsome disposition which led him to intrigue 



THE RESULTS OF SARATOGA 267 

against Franklin and into other serious troubles. At this 
time, however, he did very well, for he had been the agent 
of Massachusetts, and knew his ground thoroughly. He 
seems to have obtained good information, and, what was 
still more important, he came into relations with a man 
who at this juncture was destined to be of great service to 
America. This was Beaumarchais, mechanician and mer- 
chant, orator and financier, writer and politician. Above 
all, Beaumarchais was the child of his time, the author of 
"The Barber of Seville," the creator of "Figaro," which 
played its part in preparing the way for what was to come. 
As the child of his time, too, he was infected with the 
spirit of change, filled with liberal views and hopes for 
humanity, which were soon to mean many things besides 
a philosophic temper of mind. So the American cause 
appealed to him as Frenchman, speculator, adventurer, and 
friend of humanity and progress. He saw Lee in London ; 
is said to have gone there eight times for that purpose ; 
and presently stood as the connecting link between the 
ancient monarchy and the young republic of America. 

Vergennes, pressing steadily toward action in behalf of 
the revolting English colonies, was opposed in the Cabinet 
by Turgot, who sympathized deeply with the American 
cause, but rightly felt that France was in no condition to 
face another war. With Turgot was Maurepas, and Ver- 
gennes could advance but slowly in his policy. Never- 
theless, he got something done. In May, 1776, he sent 
$200,000 to the Americans, and persuaded Spain to do the 
same. It was all effected very secretly through Beau- 
marchais, but still it was done. 

Meantime, Congress was moving, too. In March, 
1776, it appointed Silas Deane, a merchant of Connecti- 



268 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

cut, as agent and commissioner to France, to secretly 
sound the government, and also to see what could he 
done in Holland. Deane was an energetic, pushing man, 
who rendered good service, but he was careless in making 
contracts, was attacked and misrepresented by Lee, re- 
called from Europe, and being injudicious in his defence, 
he dropped out of public life. Like Lee, however, he did 
well in the early days, lie reached France in July, 1776, 
and was admitted on the 11th to an interview with Ver- 
gennes. On the 20th he obtained a promise of arms, and 
again Beaumarchais was authorized to supply merchandise 
to the value of three million livres. When the Declara- 
tion of Independence was known, Vergennes urged action 
more strongly than ever, and Congress — now that the die 
was cast — discussed the draft of a treaty with France, and, 
what was far more important, appointed Franklin as a 
commissioner with Deane and Lee to negotiate with the 
French Government. Franklin reached Paris as the year 
was drawing to a close, and was received with enthusiastic 
warmth. He was known all over Europe, and especially 
in France, where his reputation as a man of science and a 
philosopher, as a writer and philanthropist, added to his 
fame as a public man, made him as popular and admired 
as he was distinguished. His coming changed the com- 
plexion of affairs and gave a seriousness to the negotiations 
which they had lacked before. Public sympathy, too, was 
awakened, and Lafayette, young and enthusiastic, prepared 
to depart at his own expense to serve as a volunteer in 
the cause of liberty. So, too, went De Kalb, and a little 
later, Pulaski ; and then Kosciusko, together with a crowd 
of less desirable persons who saw in the American war a 
field for adventure. 



THE RESULTS OF SARATOGA 269 

On December 28th Franklin was received by Yer- 
gennes and greatly encouraged by him. The opposition 
in the Cabinet was giving way, and although nothing 
could be done with Spain, despite the efforts of Ver- 
gennes to make her act with France, American affairs 
were moving smoothly and propitiously. Then came the 
news of the defeats on the Hudson, and everything was 
checked. It seemed, after all, as if it was not such a seri- 
ous matter, as if England had but to exert herself to put 
an end to it, and so there was a general drawing back. 
France stopped on the way to a treaty and refused to do 
anything leading to war. She continued to secretly ad- 
vance money, sent ships with arms, and allowed American 
privateers in her ports, but beyond this she would not go, 
and all the popularity and address of Franklin were for 
the time vain. 

But as the months wore away, the attention of Europe 
was fixed on the northern campaign which was to break 
the colonies and crush the rebellion. Before the year 
closed, the news of Saratoga had crossed the Atlantic. It 
was received in England with consternation. Lord North 
was overwhelmed. He saw that it meant a French alli- 
ance, the loss of the colonies, perhaps French conquests. 
He went as far as he could in framing conciliatory propo- 
sitions, and appointed a commission to take them to 
America — but it was all too late. As Washington said, 
an acknowledged independence was now the only possible 
peace. The King, who was not clever like Lord North, 
failed to see the meaning of Saratoga, and was ready to 
face a world in arms rather than yield to rebels. In Eng- 
land, therefore, Burgoyne's surrender brought nothing but 
abortive concessions, which two years earlier would have 



270 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

settled everything, and fresh preparations for a struggle 
fast drawing into hopelessness. 

In France the result was widely different. Paris heard 
the tidings of Saratoga with joy, and Vergennes received 
the commissioners on December 12th. He made no se- 
cret of his pleasure in the news which sustained the posi- 
tion he had taken, and he also understood, what very few 
at that moment comprehended, the immense importance 
and meaning of Washington's stubborn fighting" with 
Howe while the northern victories were being won. On 
December 20th Franklin and Deane were informed that 
the King would acknowledge the colonies and support 
their cause. On February 6th two treaties were made 
between France and the United States, one of amity and 
commerce, and the other an eventual treaty of defensive 
alliance. On March 20th the American commissioners 
were at Versailles and were presented to the King, and on 
the 2 2d they were received by Marie Antoinette. On 
April 10th Gerard was sent as Minister to the United 
States, and the alliance was complete. England, formally 
notified of the treaties, accepted them as an act of war. 
Burgoyne's surrender had done its work, and France had 
cast her sword into the scale against England. The men 
who had fought side by side with British soldiers, and 
gloried in the winning of Canada, were now united with 
the French, whom they had then helped to conquer, in the 
common purpose of tearing from the empire of Britain 
the fairest and greatest part of her colonial dominion. 
The English Ministers and the English King, who had 
made such a situation possible by sheer blundering, may 
well have looked with wonder at the work of their hands. 

The diplomacy of the Americans was as fortunate as 



THE RESULTS OF SARATOGA 271 

their conduct of the original controversy with the mother- 
country. Almost everywhere they secured a reception 
which assured them, if not actual support, at least a be- 
nevolent neutrality. Russia refused troops to England 
and manifested a kindly interest in the new States. Hol- 
land, who had herself fought her way to freedom, and could 
not forget her kindred in the New World, not only refused 
to give troops to George III., but openly sympathized 
with the rebels, and later lent them money, for all which 
she was to suffer severely at the hands of England. The 
northern powers stood aloof and neutral. Austria sym- 
pathized slightly, but did nothing. Spain, despite the 
pressure of Vergennes, could not be stirred, and Lee's 
expedition to Burgos, where he met Grimaldi, in the win- 
ter of 1776-77, bore no fruit. Lee, who was not lacking 
in zeal and enerow also went to Berlin. He was well 
received there by Frederick, who looked with unfeigned 
contempt on the blundering of his cousin George, and pre- 
dicted the success of the colonies, but who would not at 
that moment engage himself in the controversy. While 
Lee was in Berlin, the British Minister, Elliott, hired a 
thief for one thousand guineas to break into the American 
Envoy's room and steal his papers. Lee recovered the 
papers on complaining to the police, but this unusual 
diplomatic performance caused Frederick to refuse to see 
Elliott, to enter on his Cabinet record that the act of the 
British Minister was "a public theft," and to increase the 
kindness and consideration with which he treated Lee. 

On the whole, the diplomacy of the new-born nation 
was highly successful. The American representatives 
made a good impression wherever they appeared, and 
turned to excellent account the unpopularity of England. 



272 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

They soon satisfied themselves that they had nothing to 
fear from Europe and much to hope which cleared the 
ground and enabled the United States to face the future 
with the knowledge that England could look for no aid 
against them outside her own resources. They were des- 
tined to get much more from Europe than this negative 
assurance ; but the beginning was well made. The seene, 
of their greatest efforts was, of course, in France, and 
there they attained to the height of their desires on the 
strength of Burgoyne's surrender. Congress, appreciating 
more and more the work to be done abroad, sent out John 
Adams to replace Deane. He arrived after the signing of 
the treaties, but his coming was most fortunate, for Frank- 
lin's colleagues were disposed to be jealous of him and to 
intrigue against him. As so often happens, they were in- 
ferior men, who could not understand why the superior 
man was looked up to as the real leader. But no jealousy 
could obscure the facts. Franklin was the hero of the 
hour and the admired of Court and city. His simple 
ways, his strong and acute intellect, his keen humor, his 
astute diplomacy, all standing out against the background 
of his scientific fame, appealed strongly to Frenchmen and 
to the mood of the hour. Statesmen listened to him re- 
spectfully, the great ladies of the brilliant and frivolous 
Court flattered and admired him, the crowds cheered him 
in the streets, and when the Academv received Voltaire, 
the audience, comprising all that was most distinguished 
in arts and letters, demanded that he and Franklin should 
embrace each other in their presence. 

The first impulse is to laugh at those two old men, 
worn with experience and wise with much knowledge of 
the world, sceptics both in their different ways, solemnly 




From the fainting- by Duplessis, 1778, 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 

the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadeiphi 

fans, trance. 



Owned by Dr. Clifford F. Snyder, 



THE RESULTS OF SARATOGA 275 

kissing each other amid the excited plaudits of that brill- 
iant assemblage. It seems almost impossible not to imag- 
ine that the keen sense of humor which both possessed in 
such a high degree should not have been kindled as the 
wrinkled, withered face of Voltaire drew near to that of 
Franklin, smooth, simple-looking, and benevolent, with 
the broad forehead arching over the cunning, penetrating 
eyes. Yet this, if the most obvious, is also the superficial 
view. Both actors and audience took the whole ceremony 
with seriousness and emotion, and they were right to do so, 
for there is a deep significance in that famous scene of the 
Academy. Voltaire's course was run, while Franklin had 
many years of great work still before him ; but both were 
children of the century ; both represented the great move- 
ment of the time for intellectual and political freedom, 
then beginning to culminate. Franklin, although he had 
passed the age of the Psalmist, represented also the men 
who were even then trying to carrv into practice what 
Voltaire had taught, and to build anew on the ground 
which he had cleared. Voltaire stood above all else for 
the spirit which destroyed in order to make room for bet- 
ter things. If Cervantes laughed Spain's chivalry away, 
Voltaire's sneering smile had shattered faiths, beliefs, and 
habits which for centuries had lain at the very foundation 
of government and society. Revolutions in thought are 
not made with rose-water, any more than other revolu- 
tions, and Voltaire had spared nothing. His wonderful 
intellect, as versatile as it was ingenious, had struck at 
everything that was accepted. The most sacred beliefs 
and the darkest superstitions, the foulest abuses and the 
noblest traditions, had all alike shrivelled beneath his 
satire, quivered under his scorn, and shrunk from his ridi- 



276 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

ciile. Those that deserved to live survived it all to bloom 
again. Those that deserved to die perished beneath the 
blight. He had mocked at religion until scepticism had 
become fashionable, and the Church itself was laughed at 
and disregarded. 1 Ie had sneered at governments and 
riders and courts, until all reverence for them had de- 
parted, lie had lashed the optimism of those who pos- 
sessed the earth, until their doctrines appeared a hideous 
sham, and the miseries of men the only realities. He was 
the destroyer without whom the deep abuses of the time 
could never have been reached or remedied. But he 
offered nothing, and men cannot live on negations. As 
he cleared the ground, other men rose up seeking to re- 
place the ruined and lost ideals with new and better hopes. 
If mankind was miserable, there must be some cure. If 
governments were bad, and kings and courts evil, they 
must be replaced bv the people whom they ruled and 
oppressed. If the Church was a fraud, and religion a 
superstition, salvation must be found in the worship of 
humanity. 

In France, bankrupt, oppressed, misgoverned, and vet 
the intellectual centre of Europe, this great movement 
came to full life. It was there that the old dykes had 
been broken and the rushing tide of new thought had 
poured in. There Voltaire had swept men from their old 
moorings, and there Rousseau and many others were 
dreaming dreams and seeing visions of the regeneration of 
mankind. Suddenly, into this society fermenting with 
new ideas and preparing, all unconsciously, for armed rev- 
olution, came the news of the American revolt. Here, 
then, it seemed were men 3,000 miles away who were 
actually trying, in a practical, tangible manner, to do that 



THE RESULTS OF SARATOGA 277 

very thing about which the intellect and the imagination 
of France were reasoning and dreaming. Thus the Amer- 
ican appeal thrilled through this great and brilliant French 
society which seemed on the surface so remote from the 
fishers and choppers and ploughmen, who, far away on 
the verge of the wilderness, were trying to constitute a 
state. The ministers and statesmen, dealing with facts, 
instructed as to precedents, and blind to the underlying 
forces, saw in the revolt of the American Colonies an op- 
portunity to cripple England and thus reduce their enemy 
and rival. They saw correctly so far as they saw at all. 
France sustained the colonies, and the British Empire was 
broken. But they did not see what lay beyond ; they did 
not understand that they were paving the way for the 
overthrow of monarchies other than that which ruled 
North America ; nor was it in the deeper sense due to 
them that France became the ally of the United States. 

Thev were borne along by a mightier force than any- 
thing they had ever known, and of which they had no real 
conception. The King, with a mental capacity sufficient 
only for a good locksmith, had a dumb animal instinct of 
race which made him dislike the whole American policy. 
He received Franklin coldly, almost gruffly, and yielded 
reluctantly to his Ministers. Yet he, too, was driven 
along by a force as irresistible as it was unseen, which fi- 
nallv having broken all bounds swept him to the prison 
and the scaffold. Louis's royal instinct was entirely right 
so far as he was concerned, and much truer than the judg- 
ment of his keen and well-instructed Ministers. Kings 
had no business to be backing up revolted colonists, for 
the cause of America was the cause of the people against 
all kings. It was for this very reason that it appealed not 



278 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

only to the intellect of France, which had thrown dow r n 
the old beliefs and was seeking- a new creed, but to the 
French people, who were beginning to stir blindly and 
ominously with a sense of their wrongs and their power. 
This was why the American cry for aid aroused the en- 
thusiasm and the sympathy of France. The democratic 
movement, still hidden in the shadows and the depths, but 
none the less beginning to move and live in France, recog- 
nized, instinctively, the meaning of the same movement 
which had started into full life in America with arms in 
its hand. This was the deep, underlying cause of the 
French alliance when the surrender of Burgoyne said, not 
merely to Ministers intent on policy, but to a nation with 
visions in its brain, here is an armed people, not only 
fighting for the rights of man, but fighting victoriously, 
and bringing to wreck and extinction a King's army which 
had been sent against them. 



CHAPTER XII 

FABIUS 

THE intimate connection between the northern cam- 
paign against Burgoyne and that conducted at 
the same time by the main army, under Wash- 
ington, has been too much overlooked. If the English 
army in the south had been able or ready to push forward 
to Albany at all hazards, nothing could have stayed the 
success of Burgoyne and the consequent control by the 
British of the line of the Hudson. Lord George Ger- 
main's pigeon-holed order and country visits counted for 
something in delaying any British movement from New 
York ; but if the main army had been free and unchecked, 
not even tardy orders or the dulness of Howe and Clinton 
would have prevented an effective advance in full force up 
the Hudson instead of the abortive raid of a comparatively 
small detachment. The reason that relief did not reach 
Burgoyne from the south was simply that the British army 
there was otherwise engaged and could not come. Wash- 
ington had entire confidence, after the British reached Ti- 
conderoga, that the whole expedition would end in failure 
and defeat. He was confident, because he understood all 
the conditions thoroughly. He had been a backwoods 
fighter in his youth, he had seen Braddock routed, in the 

midst of that disaster he had saved the remnants of the 

279 



28o THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

shattered, panic-stricken army, and he knew that the people 
of New England and New York, rising in defence of their 
homes, and backed by the wilderness, would sooner or later 
destroy any regular army with a distant base and long com- 
munications. For this success there was only one abso- 
lutely indispensable condition: no army from the south 
must be allowed to meet the invaders from the north. 
That they should not, depended on him, and hence his 
confidence in Schuyler's measures and in the ultimate de- 
struction of Burgoyne. Yet the task before him was a 
severe one, in reality far graver and more difficult than 
that wrought out so bravely and well by the people of the 
north. 

Washington, in the first and chief place, had no wilder- 
ness as an ally. He was facing the principal English army, 
better equipped, better disciplined, much more numerous 
than his own, and operating in a settled country and over 
good roads. His enemy controlled the sea, and a seaport 
was their base of supplies. They therefore had no long 
line of communications, were not obliged, and could not 
be compelled, to live off the country, were in no danger 
of starvation, and were quartered in towns where a large 
proportion of the inhabitants were loyal to the crown. 
Washington's problem was to hold the main British army 
where they were and make it impossible for them to march 
north while the season permitted. This he had to do by 
sheer force of his own skill and courage with a half-formed, 
half-drilled army, an inefficient government behind him, 
and meagre and most uncertain resources. To succeed, 
he had to hold his army together at all hazards, and 
keep the field, so that the British would never dare to 
march north and leave him in their rear. In order to ac- 



FAEIUS 281 

complish this result he would have to fight again and again, 
keep the enemy in check, employ them, delay them, con- 
sume time, and no matter what reverses might befall him, 
never suffer a defeat to become a rout, or permit his army 
to break and lose its spirit. The story of the campaign of 
1777011 the northern border has been told. The way in 
which Washington dealt with his own problem and faced 
his difficulties is the story of the other campaign which 
went on all through that same spring and summer in the 
Middle States, and upon which the fate of Burgoyne so 
largely turned. 

After his victory at Princeton, at the beginning of the 
year, Washington withdrew to Morristown, and there re- 
mained in winter quarters until May. His militia, as 
usual, left him as their terms of enlistment expired, his 
army at times was reduced almost to a shadow, but still he 
kept his ground and maintained his organization, which 
was the one great problem of the winter. In the spring 
the needed levies came in, and Washington at once took 
the field and occupied a strong position at Middlebrook. 
Howe came out from Brunswick, looked at the American 
position, decided that it was too strong to be forced, and 
withdrew to Amboy. He made another effort when he 
heard the American army was at Ouibbletown, but Wash- 
ington eluded him, and Howe then passed over to Staten 
Island and abandoned New Jersev entirely. 

Washington saw so plainly what the British ought to 
do that he supposed Howe would surely make every sacri- 
fice to unite with Burgovne and would direct all his ener- 
gies to that end. Fie therefore expected him to move at 
once up the Hudson, and accordinglv advanced himself to 
Ramapo, so that he might be within striking distance of 



282 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

New York ; for he was determined at all costs to prevent 
the junction with Burgoyne, which he knew was the one 
vital point of the campaign. For six weeks he remained 
in ignorance of Howe's intentions, but at last, on July 
24th, he learned that Howe had sailed with the bulk of 
the army, and that the entire fleet was heading to the 
south. Thereupon he marched toward Philadelphia, but 
hearing that the fleet had been seen off the capes of the 
Delaware and had then been lost sight of, he concluded 
that Howe was bound for Charleston, and made up his 
mind to return to New York, as he felt that the troops 
still there would certainly be used to reach Burgoyne, if 
the American army on any pretext could be drawn away. 

He had not entirely fathomed, however, the intelligence 
of the British commanders. That which was clear to him 
as the one thing to be done, had not occupied Howe's mind 
at all. He was not thinking of Burgoyne, did not under- 
stand the overwhelming importance of that movement, and 
had planned to take Philadelphia from the south, having 
failed to get Washington out of his path in New Jersey. 
So when he sailed he was making for Philadelphia, an im- 
portant town, but valueless in a military point of view at 
that particular juncture. Definite news that the British 
were in the Chesapeake reached Washington just in time 
to prevent his return to New York, and he at once set out 
to meet the enemy. His task at last was clear to him. 
If possible, he must save Philadelphia, and if that could 
not be done, at least he must hold Howe there, and stop 
his going north after the capture of the citv. He there- 
fore marched rapidly southward, and passed through Phila- 
delphia, to try to encourage by his presence the loyal, and 
chill the disaffected in that divided town. The intention 



FABIUS 283 

was excellent, but it is to be feared that his army could 
not have made a very gratifying or deep impression. The 
troops were ill-armed, poorly clothed, and so nearly des- 
titute of uniforms, that the soldiers were forced to wear 
sprigs of green in their hats in order to give themselves 







WASHINGTON'S HEAD-QUARTERS, NEAR CHAD'S EORD, AT THE TIME OF 
THE BATTLE OF THE BRANDYWINE. 



some slight appearance of identity in organization and pur- 
pose. Nevertheless, poorly as they looked, their spirit 
was good ; they meant to fight, and when Washington 
halted south of Wilmington, he sent forward Maxwell's 
corps and then waited the coming of the enemy. 

Howe having lingered six weeks in New York, with no 



284 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



apparent purpose, had consumed another precious month 
in his voyage, and did not finally land his men until 
August 25th. This done, he advanced slowly along the 
Elk, and it was September 3d when he reached Aitken's 
Tavern, and encountered Maxwell, who was driven back 
after a sharp skirmish. Howe pressed on, expecting to 
take the Americans at a disadvantage, but Washington 







"1 






0.-K&' ■fev"fr,'f-'£i*;;iv<-S?5' '.-IV 




lip ds&ft 



M^M 



^■•? ; j..^*,:> 









^ 



LAFA YETTE'S HE 4 P-OT. I RTERS, 
NE \R CHAD'S FORD, DURING 
THE BATTLE OF THE BR AN- 
DY WINE. 



slipped away from him and took a strong and advantage- 
ous position at Chad's Ford on the Brandywine, where 
he determined to make a stand and risk a battle, although 
he had only 1 1,000 effective men, and Howe had brought 
[8,000 from New York. Possessing the advantage of 
position, he had a chance to win, and he meant to take 
every chance. With the main army he held Chad's Ford; 
the lower fords were held by the Pennsylvania militia on 



FABIUS 



287 



the left, while Sullivan, in command of the right wing, was 
to guard those above the main army. This important 
work Sullivan failed to do, or did imperfectly, and from 
this failure came defeat. On the 11th, Knyphausen, with 
7,000 men, came to Chad's Ford and made a feint of 



?.&" 



J^Wjj 5 u 






BIRMINGHAM 

MEETING-HOUSE 






» . 

■ 

Tl fir 




;!r v *? ' 



ir* 



BIRMINGHAM MEETING-HOUSE. NEAR CHAD'S FORD. 

Ola Quaker meeting-house used as a hospital during the battle of the Brandywi?ic, and to which Lafayette 'was 

earned when wounded. 



crossing. Meantime, Cornwallis and Howe, with an 
equally strong column, marched north, and then swinging 
to the east around the forks of the Brandy-wine, crossed at 
the unguarded fords. At noon Washington heard of 
Cornwallis's movement, and with quick instinct deter- 
mined to fall upon Knyphausen in his front and crush 
him. He had indeed begun to cross the stream, when 



288 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

word came from Sullivan that he had been assured by 
Major Spear, who had been on the other side of the riv- 
er, that Corawallis was not advancing, as reported. This 
blundering message made Washington draw back his men 
and relinquish his attack on Knvphausen, and meantime 
the battle was lost. Sullivan, indeed, could hardly have 
sent off his fatal misinformation before the British were 
upon him. He made a brave stand, but he was outnum- 
bered and outflanked, and his division was routed. Wash- 
ington hearing firing, made rapidly toward the right wing, 
where, meeting the fugitives, he ordered Greene forward, 
who with great quickness brought up his division and sup- 
ported the broken right wing, so that they were able to 
withdraw to a narrow defile, where they made good their 
ground until nightfall. At Chad's Ford, Wayne held 
Knvphausen in check until assured of the disaster to the 
right wing, and then drew off in good order and joined 
the main army at Chester. The battle had been lost 
through obvious faults on the American side, although 
Washington's dispositions were excellent. If he had 
crossed when he started to do so, and fallen upon Knvp- 
hausen with a superior force at that point, he would have 
won his light, even if Sullivan had been crushed. Every- 
thing in fact was ruined bv the carelessness which caused 
Sullivan to leave the fords unguarded, of which he did 
not know, but of which he should have known, and by 
the blundering message which prevented Washington 
from attacking Knvphausen. Nevertheless, it is a griev- 
ous error in war to be misinformed, and it shows that the 
scouting was poor and the General badly served by his 
outposts. These grave faults came, of course, from the 
rawness of the army and the lack of proper organization, 



FABIUS 



289 



yet it must be admitted that even in an army recently 
levied, such misinformation as Sullivan sent to Washing- 
ton seems unpardonable. 
Still, despite the defeat, 
it is easy to perceive a 
decided improvement 
since the defeat at Long 
Island for, although Sul- 
livan's men showed some 
unsteadiness, the army as 
a whole behaved well. 
The American loss was 
over a thousand, the Brit- 
ish live hundred and sev- 
enty-nine, but there was 
no panic, and no rout. 
Washington had his army 
well in hand that night, 
marched the next morn- 
ing from Chester to Ger- 
mantown, then recrossed 
the Schuylkill at Swedes' 
Fort and moving in a westerly direction along the old Lan- 
caster road on September 16th faced Howe near West 
Chester, ready to fight again. Skirmishing, in fact, had act- 
ually begun, when a violent storm came up and so wet the 
ammunition on both sides that the firing ceased, and Wash- 
ington was compelled to withdraw for fresh supplies. He 
left Wayne behind, who got in the rear of the British ad- 
vancing along the west bank of the river and who wrote 
Washington that a terrible mistake had been made in re- 
crossing the Schuylkill, as a fatal blow might have been 




BARON KNYPHAUSEN, COMMANDER Ot 

THE HESS/ A XS IX THE WAR BETWEEN 
EXGLAXD AXD THE UNITED STATES. 

From a drawing, the original of which is m the pos- 
session of the Knyphausen family. The reproduction is 
from ,i photograph of the drawing, .kliuJ by .".';, H 
Society of Pennsylvania. 



290 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

struck if he had only remained. Wayne sent this opinion 
off, supposing that the British were ignorant of his own 
position. Unfortunately they were not, and on the night 
of the 20th, General Grey surprised him in his camp at 
Paoli, where the Americans lost one hundred and fifty 
men. By courage and presence of mind, Wayne escaped 
with his cannon and the rest of his men, but with his 
division much broken by the shock. Coming on top of 
the defeat at the Brandywine, and due to overconfidence 
and also again to lack of proper information, this unfort- 
unate affair was not inspiriting to the general tone of the 
army. 

Howe, on his side, after disposing of Wayne, made a 
feint which caused Washington to march up the river to 
protect his stores at Reading, and then turning, went 
straight on to Philadelphia. He reached Germantown on 
the 25th, and the next morning Cornwallis marched into 
Philadelphia with 3,000 men and took possession of the 
town. Congress, or whatever was left of it, had fled 
some days before to Lancaster, but the townspeople re- 
mained. Some received the King's soldiers with loud 
acclaim, most of them looked on in sullen silence, while 
the British on their side behaved perfectly well and mo- 
lested nobody. Thus Howe smoothly and triumphantly 
had achieved his purpose. Lie sent word to his brother in 
command of the fleet that the city was won, started in- 
trenchments, and prepared to remove the obstructions and 
forts by which the Americans still held the river. All in- 
deed had gone very well. The rebels had been beaten, 
some of their detachments surprised, and their capital 
taken. Howe thought the business was about over, and, 
if he had been capable of the mental effort, may have 



FABIUS 291 

been considering a quick march to the north after his con- 
quest of the Middle States and a victorious junction with 
Burgoyne. While he was making his preparations to 
clear the river, he kept his main army in Germantown 
quietly and comfortably, and there on the early morning 
of October 4th he suddenly heard firing, and riding out, 
met his light infantry running. He expressed his surprise 
at their conduct, and then rode back to his main line, for 
he found a general action had begun. It seemed that the 
beaten rebels did not understand that they were beaten, 
but were upon him again, a piece of audacity for which he 
was not prepared. Washington in fact had not only held 
his army together after defeat, but had maintained it in 
such good trim and spirits that, although inferior in num- 
bers, he was able to assume the aggressive and boldly 
engage his enemy lying in nearly full force at German- 
town. It was a well-planned attack and came within an 
ace of complete success. 

Sullivan, supported by Washington with the reserves, 
was to make the main attack in front. The Pennsylvania 
and New Jersey militia were to distract the enemy's atten- 
tion by demonstrations on the flanks, while Greene, taking 
a wide sweep with a large force, was to come up from the 
Limekiln road and strike the right wing of the British, 
forcing them back toward the river. Sullivan waited two 
hours to give Greene time to arrive, and then advanced. 
At first all went well ; the morning was misty and the 
British were surprised. The Americans drove the enemy 
rapidly and in confusion before them, and were pressing on 
to the centre of the town when some companies of Eng- 
lish soldiers opened fire from the Chew house, a large 
stone building, upon the reserves, who were following 



292 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



Sullivan. Very unwisely they stopped and tried to take 
the house, and then endeavored to burn it. Both attempts 
not only failed but wasted time and lost men. They 
should have pushed on, leaving a small body to watch the 
house, instead of slackening as they did the momentum of 




THE CHEW HOUSE, GERMANTOWN. 



the first rush. Even this unlucky delay, however, would 
not have been fatal if the attack from the east, which was 
the key of Washington's plan, had succeeded. Greene, 
however, was half an hour late, and then struck the enemy 
sooner than he expected, and had his line broken. lie 
nevertheless reformed, kept on, and drove the British back, 
but reinforcements coming up, he was forced to retreat. 
Worse than this, one of his divisions going astray in the 



FABIUS 295 

fog, came up to the Chew house and opened fire. There- 
upon Wayne supposing the enemy was in his rear drew 
off, uncovering Sullivan's flank, and thus forced the lat- 
ter to retreat also. The British pursued, but were finally 
stopped by Wayne's battery at Whitemarsh. The Ameri- 
can attack had failed and the army had been repulsed. 
The causes of the defeat were the difficulties inseparable 
from a plan requiring several detached movements, the 
confusion caused by the thick mist, and the consequent 
unsteadiness of the new troops. The fighting was sharp, 
and the Americans lost 673 in killed and wounded, be- 
sides 400 made prisoners, while the British lost in killed 
and wounded only 521. Nevertheless, although repulsed, 
Washington had not fought in vain. He had shown his 
ability to assume the offensive immediately after a defeat, 
and this not only had a good effect at home, but weighed 
very greatly with Vergennes, who saw the meaning of a 
battle under such circumstances more clearly than those 
actually on the scene of action. 

Moreover, Washington had brought off his army again 
in good spirits, with courage and confidence restored, and 
still held the field so strongly that Howe, despite his vic- 
tories, found himself practically besieged, with provisions 
running short. He could not move by land, and it there- 
fore became a matter of life and death to open the Del- 
aware River so that the fleet could come up to his relief. 
Accordingly, on October 19th, he withdrew from Ger- 
mantown to Philadelphia, forced to do so by Washing- 
ton's operations despite the repulse of the Americans, and 
turned his whole attention to the destruction of the de- 
fences of the Delaware. These defences consisted of two 
unfinished works : Fort Mifflin on an island in the Schuyl- 



296 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

kill, and Fort Mercer at Red Bank in New Jersey. Be- 
tween these points the channel was blocked and the block- 
ade defended by a flotilla of small boats commanded by 
Commodore Hazlewood and by some larger vessels built for 
Congress. The British fleet forced the obstructions below 
and came nearly up to Fort Mifflin on October 21st. The 
next day Count Donop with 2,500 Hessians attacked Fort 
Mercer, held by Colonel Greene with 600 men. Their first 
assault was repulsed with heavy loss. The British forces 
were to have been supported by the fleet, but Hazlewood 
beat off the vessels sent against him, and drawing in near 
shore, opened on the Hank of the Hessians. Donop ral- 
lied his men and led them again and again to the attack, 
but they were met by such a murderous fire that they gave 
way, and Donop himself was mortally wounded and made 
a prisoner. The Hessians lost over four hundred men, 
the Americans thirty-five. Two British vessels also went 
aground, were attacked by the Americans, set on fire and 
blown up. The defence was admirably conducted, and 
the whole affair was one of the best fought actions of 
the war. 

This attempt to carry the American redoubts by a 
simple rush had thus not only failed but had resulted in 
heavy slaughter. Even Howe saw that he must take 
more deliberate measures to attain his end. He accord- 
ingly erected batteries on the Pennsylvania shore, which 
reached Fort Mifflin with most serious effect. Men-of- 
war at the same time came up and opened tire on the 
other side. For five days the three hundred men held 
out, and then, most of their officers being killed or 
wounded, their ammunition nearly exhausted, their guns 
dismounted, they abandoned the heap of ruins which they 




THE REPULSE OF THE HESSIANS UNDER COUNT DONOP AT FORT MERCER. 



Donah rallied hi 



•i.i led them again and again to the attack, hut they were met by such a murderous Jit 
that they gave nay, and Donop was mortally wounded. 



FABIUS 299 

had defended so well, and on the night of November 15th 
crossed over to Red Bank. This fort, now isolated, was 
menaced in the rear by Cornwallis, and before General 
Greene could reach it with relief, the garrison were ob- 
liged to retreat and leave its empty walls to be destroyed. 
The defence of these two posts had been altogether admi- 
rable, and had served an important purpose in occupying 
the British General, besides costing him, all told, some six 
hundred men and two vessels. 

Nevertheless, Howe was at last in possession of Phila- 
delphia, the object of his campaign, and with his com- 
munications by water open. He had consumed four 
months in this business since he left New York, three 
months since he landed near the Elk River. His prize, 
now that he had got it, was worth less than nothing in a 
military point of view, and he had been made to pay a 
high price for it, not merely in men, but in precious time, 
for while he was struggling sluggishly for Philadelphia, 
Burgoyne, who really meant something very serious, had 
gone to wreck and sunk out of sight in the northern for- 
ests. Indeed, Howe did not even hold his dearly bought 
town in peace, for after the fall of the forts, Greene, aided 
by Lafayette, who had joined the army on its way to the 
Brandywine, made a sharp dash and broke up an outly- 
ing party of Hessians. Such things were intolerable, they 
interfered with personal comfort, and they emanated from 
the American army which Washington had now estab- 
lished in strong lines at Whitemarsh. So Howe an- 
nounced that in order to have a quiet winter, he would 
drive Washington beyond the mountains. Howe did not 
often display military intelligence, but that he was pro- 
foundly right in this particular intention must be admitted. 



;oo 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



In pursuit of his plan, therefore, he marched out of Phila- 
delphia on December 4th, drove off some Pennsylvania 

militia on the 5th, considered 
the American position for 
four days, did not dare to at- 
tack, could not draw his op- 
ponent out, returned to the 
city, and left Washington to 
go into winter quarters at 
Valley Forge, whence he 
could easily strike if any 
move was made by the Brit- 
ish army. 

Not the least difficult of 
Washington's achievements 
was this same refusal to 
come down and fight Howe 
at Whitemarsh. He had 
been anxious to do so some- 
time before, for it was part 
ol his nature to fight hard and at every opportunity. 
Vet when Howe marched against him at this juncture he 
refused, and the strength of his position was such that the 
British felt it would he certain defeat to attack. The 
country, with its head turning from the victory over Bur- 
goyne, was clamoring for another battle. Comparisons 
were made between Washington and Gates, grotesque 
as such an idea seems now, much to the former's disad- 
vantage, and the defeats of Branch wine and Germantown 
were contrasted bitterly with the northern victories. Mur- 
murs could be heard in the Congress, which had been 
forced to fly from their comfortable quarters by the arrival 




LA FA YETTE. 

From a portrait painted by ( . //'. /Vale, in l~So, 
frr Washington. Now owned by General (.. IV. C Lee, 



FABIUS 



301 



of the victorious enemy in Philadelphia. John Adams, 
one of the ablest and most patriotic of men, but with a 
distinct capacity for honest envy, discoursed excitedly 
about Washington's failures and Gates's successes. He 
knew nothing of military affairs, but as Sydney Smith said 
of Lord John Russell, he would have been ready to take 
command of the Channel Fleet on a day's notice, and so 






L 



THE OLD P. 




\T VALLEY FORGE 
HE A D- QUA R TERS. 



X AS 



he decided and announced, in his impetuous way, the great- 
ness of Gates, whose sole merit was that he was not able 
to prevent Burgoyne's defeat, growled at the General-in- 
Chief, who had saved the Revolution, and sneered at him 
as a " Fabius." 

Washington knew all these things. He heard the 
clamors from the country, and they fell in with his own 
instincts and desires. He was quite aware of the com- 



302 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

parisons with Gates and of the murmurings and criticism 
in Congress. Yet he went his way unmoved. He weak- 
ened himself to help the northern army, for he understood, 
as no one else then did, the crucial character of Burgoyne's 
expedition. When the news of the surrender at Saratoga 
came to him, his one word was devout gratitude for the 
victory he had expected. But no comparisons, no sneers, 
no rivalry could make him move from the lines at White- 
marsh. If Howe would attack him where victory was 
certain, well and good, but on the edge of winter he would 
take no risk of defeat. He must hold the army together 
and keep it where it could check every movement of the 
enemy. The conquerors of Burgoyne might disperse to 
their homes, but the Continental Army must always be 
ready and in the field, for when it ceased to be so, the 
American Revolution was at an end. Hence the strong 
lines at Whitemarsh, as memorable in Washington's ca- 
reer as the lines of Torres Vedras in that of Wellington. 
Hence the refusal to fight except on a certainty, a great 
refusal, as hard to give as anything Washington ever did. 
Hence, finally, the failure of Howe to drive his enemy 
" beyond the mountains," and his retirement to Philadel- 
phia to sleep away the winter while the American Revolu- 
tion waited by his side, ready to strike the moment he 
waked and stirred. 

Washington had thus saved his army from the peril of 
defeal without lowering their spirit by retreating. He 
had stood ready to light on his own terms, and had seen 
his opponent withdraw, baffled, to the city, whence it was 
reasonably certain he would not come forth again until a 
pleasanter season. So much was accomplished, but a still 
worse task remained. He had, it is true, his army in good 



FABIUS 



303 



spirit and fair numbers, but he had to keep it through a 
hard winter, where it would hold Howe in check, and to 
maintain its life and strength without resources or equip- 
ment and with an inefficient and carping Congress for his 
only support. 

Valley Forge was the place selected for the winter 
camp. From a military stand-point it was excellent, being 




VIEW FROM FORT HUNTINGTON 

WITH A PLAN OF THE INTRENCHMENTS REMAIN- 
INC AT VALLEY FORGE. 

The view is from Fort Huntington looking toward Fort Washington, which lies at the end of tlic ~uh.it 
road in the cut bet-ween the hills. The line of the main intrenchments is marked by the trees on the summit 
oj the hill. The plan is made to correspond with the view regardli ss of the points of the compass, north being 
at the bottom of the plan. 

both central and easily defended. Critics at the time 
found fault with it because it was a wilderness with 
wooded hills darkening the valley on either side. The 
military purpose, however, was the one to be first consid- 
ered, and it may be doubted if the army would have found 
any better quarters elsewhere, unless they had cooped 
themselves up in some town where they would have been 
either too distant for prompt action or an easy mark for 



304 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

attack. But, whether due to military expediency or not, 
the story of Valley Forge is an epic of slow suffering 
silently borne, of patient heroism, and of a very bright and 
triumphant outcome, when the gray days, the long nights, 
and the biting frost tied together. The middle of Decem- 
ber in the North American woods ; no shelter, no provi- 

I AtoSU. fiJr^h A«"-f ***>-*' 

do acknowledge the UNITED S/TATiES of AME- 
RICA to be Free, Independent and Sovereign States, and 
declare that the people thereof owe no allegiance or obe- 
dience to George the Third, King of Great-Britain ; and I 
renounce, refufe and abjure any allegiance or obedience to 
him j and I do c^V-c *••>— that I will, to the ut- 

moft of my power, fupport, maintain and defend the faid 
United States againft the faid King George the Third, his 
heirs and fucceflbrs, and his or their abettors, afliftants and 
adherents, and will ferve the faid United States in the office of 
*S?7-i^fer±~ C t^jLsvtdL> which I now hold, with 

fidelity,yccordifig to the beft of my {kill and understanding. 

THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE TO THE UNITED STATES, SIGNED BY BENE- 
DICT ARNOLD AT VALLEY FORCE, 1778 

sions, no preparations ; such were the conditions of Val- 
ley Forge when the American army first came there. 
Two weeks of hard work, and huts were built and ar- 
ranged in streets ; this heavy labor being done on a diet of 
Hour mixed with water and baked in cakes, with scarcely 
any meat or bread. At night the men huddled around the 
fires to keep from freezing. Few blankets, few coverings. 




FABIUS 



305 




many soldiers without shoes, " wading naked in Decem- 
ber's snows" — such were the attributes of Valley Forge. 
By the new year the huts were 
done, the streets laid out, and 
the army housed, with some 
three thousand men unfit for 
duty, frostbitten, sick, and 
hungry. They had shelter, but 
that was about all. The coun- 
try had been swept so bare by 
the passage of contending ar- 
mies that even straw to lie 
upon was hard to get, and the 
cold, uncovered ground often 
had to serve for a sleeping- 
place. Provisions were scarce, 
and hunger was added to the 
pain of cold. Sometimes the 
soldiers went for days without 
meat — sometimes without any food, Lafayette tells us, mar- 
velling at the endurance and courage of the men. There is 
often famine in the camp, writes Hamilton, a man not 
given to exaggeration. " Famine," a gaunt, ugly fact, 
with a savage reality to those who met it, and looked it 
in the eyes, although little understood by excellent gentle- 
men in Congress and elsewhere. Then the horses had 
died in great numbers, and in consequence transportation 
was difficult, enhancing the labor of hauling firewood. 
Cold, hunger, nakedness, unending toil ; it is a singular 
proof of the devotion and patriotism of the American sol- 
dier that he bore all these sufferings and came through 
them loyally and victoriously. We are told that, tried 



OLD BELL USED IN THE CAMP 
AT VALLEY FORCE. 



306 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

sometimes almost beyond the power of endurance, the 
men were more than once on the verge of mutiny and 
general desertion. But neither desertion nor mutiny 
came, and if contemplated, they were prevented by the 
influence of the officers, and most of all by that of the 
chief officer, whose patient courage, warm sympathy, and 
indomitable spirit inspired all the army. 

And what was the Government, what was Congress 
doing, while against a suffering much worse than many 
battles their army was thus upholding the cause of the 
Revolution ? They were carping and fault-finding, and 
while leaders like Samuel and John Adams and Richard 
Henry Lee criticised, lesser men rebelled and plotted 
against the Commander-in-Chief. Mr. Clark, of New 
Jersey, thought Washington threatened popular rights be- 
cause he was obliged to take strong measures to feed his 
army, and because he insisted that the people in the Mid- 
dle States should take the oath of allegiance to the United 
States, after tampering with the British amnesty, so that 
by this proper test he might know friend from foe. Mr. 
Clark forgot that with a Congress which Gouverneur 
Morris said had depreciated as much as the currency, it 
was necessary for the most constitutional Fabius to be dic- 
tator as well as " Cunctator." Then James Lovell and 
others thought it would be well to supplant Washington 
with the alleged conqueror of Burgoyne, and Gates, slow 
and ineffective in battle, but sufficiently active in looking 
after his own advancement, thought so too, and willingly 
lent himself to their schemes. 

This party in Congress found some allies in the army. 
One of the evils which Washington had to meet, and in 
regard to which he was obliged to oppose Congress and to 





-e 







H N 



WINTER AT VALLEY FORGE. 

The relief. 



FABIUS 309 

do some pretty plain speaking, related to the foreign vol- 
unteers. Some of them were men like Lafayette, brave, 
loyal, capable, and full of a generous enthusiasm, or like 
De Kalb and Pulaski, good active soldiers, or like Steu- 
ben, officers of the highest training and capacity. To such 
men Washington gave not only encouragement, but his 
confidence and affection. Most of those, however, who 
flocked to America were what Washington bluntly called 
them, " hungry adventurers," soldiers out of work, who 
came not from love of the cause, but for what they could 
get in personal profit from the war. Deane had already 
been lavish with commissions to these people, and Con- 
gress, in the true colonial spirit, proceeded to shower 
rank upon them merely because they were foreigners, 
without regard either to merit or to the effect of their 
action. Already there had been serious trouble from the 
manner in which Congress had appointed and promoted 
native officers without reference to the wishes of the Com- 
mander-in-Chief or to the military situation, which they 
comprehended very imperfectly. But their policy in 
regard to foreigners was much worse, and meant the 
utter demoralization both of organization and discipline. 
Washington, who was not colonial in the slightest degree, 
simply because he was too great a man to be so, and who 
judged foreigners as he did all men, solely upon their mer- 
its, at once saw the mischief of the Congressional practice, 
interposed, checked, and stopped it. As a consequence, 
much hostility arose among the " hungry adventurers " and 
their friends and admirers ; so they all joined together in 
their envy of the General, and began to weave a plot 
against him. The leader of the movement was an Irish 
adventurer named Conway, who is remembered in history 



3io THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

solely by this intrigue against Washington. He desired 
to be made a major-general at once. Washington ob- 
jected on grounds both general and particular, and said 
that "Conway's merit and importance existed more in his 
own imagination than in reality." Conway was rendered 
furious by this plain-spoken opposition, and set himself to 
work to secure both revenge and the gratification of his 
own ambition. He turned to Gates as a leader, and one 
of his letters in which he spoke of a "weak general and 
bad counsellors " came to the knowledge of the Com- 
mander-in-Chief. This was absolute insubordination, and 
Washington wrote a curt note to Conway, who tried to 
apologize and then resigned, and also communicated with 
Gates, who passed several months in trying to twist out of 
his uncomfortable position while Washington held him 
relentlessly to the point. This exposure only added fuel 
to Conway's anger, and the intrigue to get control of 
military affairs went on. The Conway party was strong 
in Congress, where they succeeded in having the Board of 
War enlarged, with Gates at the head of it, and Thomas 
Mifflin, another opponent of Washington, a member. 
This Board appointed Conway Inspector-General with the 
rank of Major-General, a direct blow at Washington, and 
Gates set himself to hampering the movements of the 
Commander-in-Chief by refusing men, and offering to him 
petty slights and affronts. They hoped in this way to 
drive Washington to resign, but they little knew their 
man. He had entered on the great struggle to win, and 
neither reverses in the field nor intrigues in Congress could 
swerve him from his course. lie stood his ground with- 
out yielding a jot, he pursued Gates about the letter 
from Conway which had exposed the purposes of their 



FABIUS 311 

faction, and kept him writhing and turning all winter. 
He also received Conway with utter coldness and indiffer- 
ence when he visited the camp, which was very galling to 
a gentleman who considered himself not only important 
but dangerous. The plotters in short could make no im- 
pression upon Washington, and even while they plotted 
against him, their schemes went to pieces, for they were 
not strong enough in ability or character to be really for- 
midable. They failed in their plan for an invasion of 
Canada, and, what was far worse, they broke down utterly 
in the commissariat ; so that, although they could neither 
frighten nor move Washington, they succeeded in starving 
his soldiers and adding to their sufferings, something 
which he felt far more keenly than any attacks upon him- 
self. The failures of the cabal, however, could not be con- 
cealed but soon became apparent to all men, even to a 
committee of Congress when they visited Valley Forge. 
Such confidence as had ever been given to the new Board 
of War vanished, the members fell to quarrelling among 
themselves and telling tales on each other, and the in- 
triguers and their party went to pieces. As spring drew 
near, the end of the " Conway cabal " came. Wilkinson 
resigned the secretaryship of the Board, Mifflin was put 
under Washington's orders, Gates was sent to his com- 
mand in the north, and Conway, resigning in a pet, found 
his resignation suddenly accepted. He then fought a duel 
with General Cadwalader, a friend of the Commander-in- 
Chief, was badly wounded, wrote a contrite note to Wash- 
ington, recovered and left the country. The cabal was 
over and its author gone. Washington had withstood the 
attack of envy and intrigue, and triumphed completely 
without the slightest loss of dignity. It must have been a 



312 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



trying and harsh experience, and yet there were other 
things happening at that very time which he felt far more. 

He looked upon 
his suffering men and 
knew that at that 
moment, in Philadel- 
phia, the enemy were 
warmly housed and 
amply fed, amusing 
themselves with balls, 
dances, and theatrical 
performances. The 
bitter contrast 
touched him to the 
quick. Yet even then 
the Legislature of 
Pennsylvania thought 
that he did too much 
for his army by hut- 
ting them in Valley 
Forge, and that they 
should keep the open 
field, live in tents, and 
try to attack the ene- 
my. This thoughtful 
criticism was too much even for Washington's iron self- 
control. He wrote a very plain letter, setting forth bluntly 
the shortcomings of the Penns\ lvanians in supporting the 
army with troops and supplies, and then added: 

" I can assure those gentlemen that it is a much easier 
and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances in a com- 
fortable room by a good fireside, than to occupy a cold, 




HOUSE IN ARCH STREET, PHILADELPHIA, 
WHERE BETSY ROSS MADE THE EI EST 
AMERICAN FLAG PROM THE DESIGN 
ADOPTED BY CONGRESS. 



FABIUS 3i3 

bleak hill, and sleep under frost and snow, without clothes 
or blankets. However, although they seem to have little 
feeling for the naked and distressed soldiers, I feel super- 
abundantly for them, and from mv soul I pity their miser- 
ies, which it is neither in my power to relieve nor pre- 
vent." 

So we get the picture. There are the British, snug, 
comfortable, and entertaining themselves in Philadelphia. 
There are the members of Congress and foreign advent- 
urers intriguing and caballing for military control, with 
Pennsylvania legislators in the background growling be- 
cause the army is not camping out in the open and march- 
ing up and down in the wintry fields. All around there 
are much criticism and grumbling and wounding compari- 
sons with the exploits of the northern army. And there, 
out in Valley Forge and along the bleak hillsides, is the 
American Continental army. All that there is existent 
and militant of the American Revolution is there, too, 
just as it was during the previous winter. In the midst is 
a great man who knows the grim facts, who understands 
just what is meant by himself and the men who follow 
him, and whose purpose, the one thing just then worth 
doing in the world, is to keep, as he says, "life and soul" 
in his army. Fie is a man to whom courage and loyalty 
appeal very strongly, and it wrings his heart to watch his 
brave and loval men suffer ; yes, wrings his heart in a way 
that well-meaning gentlemen in Congress and legislative 
assemblies, self-seeking adventurers and petty rivals can- 
not understand. It makes his resentment against injus- 
tice stronger, and his determination to win sterner and 
more unyielding even than before. 

We see in imagination, but Washington saw face to 



314 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

face, his soldiers huddling around the fires at night while 
the huts were building;. He saw them hungry, half- 
dressed, frost-bitten, hatless, shoeless, struggling to get a 
shelter. Then the huts were built, and still he was striv- 
ing to get them clothes and food and blankets, as well 
as medicine for the 3,000 sick. He levied on the country ; 
lie did not stop for trifles ; he meant that, come what 
might, he would keep his men alive, and in some fashion 
they lived. With March, Greene became Quartermaster- 
General, and then the clothing and the food came, too. 
The weather began to soften and the days to lengthen. 
The worst had been passed, and yet, through all that dark- 
ness and cold, more had been done than keep "life and 
soul " in the troops, marvellous as that feat was. In their 
huts on the bleak hillsides, upon the trampled snow of the 
camp-streets, Washington had not only held his men 
together, but he had finally made his army. Excellent 
fighting material he had always had, and he had been 
forming it fast under the strain of marches, retreats, and 
battles. But still it lacked the organization and drill 
which were possessed by the enemy. These last Washing- 
ton gave it under all the miseries and sufferings of Valley 
Forge. Good fortune had brought him a man fit for this 
work above almost any other in the person of Baron Steu- 
ben, a Prussian soldier, a distinguished officer of the Seven 
Years' War, trained in the school of Frederick, the most 
brilliant commander of the time. A mai. who had fol- 
lowed the great Ki lg when he had faced all Europe in 
arms against him, knew what fighting was and what disci- 
pline could do. All he needed was good material, and that 
he found at Valley Forge. So Washington brought his 
army out of this awful winter not only with " life and 



FABIUS 



315 




soul " in them, but better equipped, thanks to Greene and 
the French loans, than ever before, increasing in numbers, 
owing to the new levies 
which came in, and drilled 
and organized in the fash- 
ion of the King of Prussia. 
Early in May came the news 
of the French alliance, which 
was celebrated in the Ameri- 
can camp with salvoes of can- 
non and musketrv, and with 
the cheers of the troops for 
the King of France and for 
the United States of Amer- 
ica. This event, so anxiously 
awaited, cheered and en- 
couraged everyone, and with 
his army thus inspirited, disciplined, and strengthened, 
Washington took the field and assumed the offensive. 

Meantime the British lingered in Philadelphia. As 
Franklin truly said, Philadelphia took them, not they the 
city ; but this fact, clear at the outset to Franklin and 
Washington, was not obvious to others for some time. 
At last glimmerings of the truth penetrated the mists 
which overhung the British Ministry. They vaguely per- 
ceived that Howe had consumed a great deal of time and 
lost a great many men, while all that he had to show for 
these expenditures were comfortable winter quarters in 
Philadelphia, where he did nothing, and where Washington 
watched him and held him cooped up by land. So the 
Ministry decided to recall Howe and give the command 
to Clinton, an entirely unimportant change, so far as the 



BARON STEUBEN, 
tinted by C. If. Peale, in 1780. 



316 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

merits of the two men were concerned. It seemed, how- 
ever, a very serious matter to the British in Philadelphia, 
and a pageant called the Mischianza was held in Howe's 
honor on May 18th. There was a procession of boats 
and galleys on the river, moving to the music of hautboys, 
between the lines of the men-of-war dressed in bunting, 
and firing salutes. Then followed a regatta, and after 
that a mock tournament, where " Knights of the Burning 
Mountain " and of the " Blended Rose " contended for 
the favor of a Queen of Beauty. In the evening there 
were fireworks, a ball, and a gaming-table with a bank of 
two thousand guineas ; all in honor of the General, whom 
the tickets described as the setting sun, destined to rise 
again in greater splendor. Stimulated by this pasteboard 
radiance and blaze of millinery, Howe waited for a last 
touch of glory, which was to come by surprising Lafay- 
ette, whom Washington had sent forward to observe the 
enemy at Barren Hill. The attempt was well planned, 
but the young Frenchman was alert and quick, and he 
slipped through his enemy's fingers unscathed. It being 
now apparent that the time for rising in greater glory had 
not quite arrived, Howe shortly after took himself off, out 
of history and out of America, where Clinton reigned in 
his stead. 

The change of commanders made no change of habits. 
Clinton tarried and delayed, as Howe had done before 
him. It was obvious that he must get to New York, 
for he was isolated where he was, and the French alliance 
would soon produce fleets, as well as fresh troops. Yet 
still he lingered. The Peace Commission, with Lord Car- 
lisle at its head, was one fruitful cause of hesitation and 
delay, but like every conciliatory movement made by Lug- 



FABIUS 



M 




land, this also was too late. 
The concessions which would 
have been hailed with rejoic- 
ing at the beginning, and ac- 
cepted even after war had 
been begun, were now utter- 
ly meaningless. Washington 
was determined to have in- 
dependence ; he would not 
sheath his sword for less, and 
he represented now as ever 
the sentiment of Americans. 
The only peace possible was 
in independence. The col- 
onies were lost to England, 
and the sole remaining ques- 
tion was, how soon she could 
be forced to admit it. So 
the Peace Commission broke 
down, and not having been 
consulted about the evacua- 
tion of Philadelphia, and hav- 
ing failed conspicuously and 
rather mortifyingly in their 
undertaking, retired in some 
dudgeon to England, to add 
their contribution to the dis- 
approval and disaffection fast 
thickening about the King's 
friends who composed the 
Ministry. 

Clinton, for his part, 



318 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

gradually got ready to carry out his orders and leave 
Philadelphia. Having made all his arrangements, he 
slipped away on June 1 8th, so quietly that the disheart- 
ened and deserted loyalists of Philadelphia hardly real- 
ized that their protectors had gone. Washington, how- 
ever, knew of it at once. He had made up his mind 
that Clinton would try to cross New Jersey, and he meant 
to attack, although he was still inferior in numbers ; for 
the British, notwithstanding the fact that they had been 
weakened both by desertions during the winter and by 
losses in battle during the previous autumn, appear still to 
have had 17,000 men against 13,000 Americans. Despite 
this disparity of force, Washington had entire confidence 
in the instrument which he had been fashioning at Valley 
Forge, and he meant to use it. General Lee, who, un- 
fortunately, had been exchanged and was now again in the 
American camp, had but one firm conviction, which was, 
that the British army was invincible, and that our policy 
was simply to keep out of its way. He argued that the 
British would never yield Pennsylvania, and that they 
were in fact intending to do everything but what they 
really aimed at, a speedy march to New York. Washing- 
ton quietly disregarded these opinions, and as soon as the 
British left Philadelphia, broke camp and moved rapidly 
after them. At Hopewell a council of war was held, and 
Lee now urged building bridges of gold for the enemy 
and aiding them to get to New York. A majority of the 
council, whom Alexander Hamilton scornfully called "old 
midwives," still under the spell of an " English officer," 
sustained Lee. But Washington had passed beyond the 
time when he would yield to councils of war which stood 
in the way of lighting, and supported by active men like 



FABIUS 319 

Greene, Wayne, and Lafayette, he firmly persisted in his 
plans. He detached Wayne and Poor with their forces 
to join Maxwell and the New Jersey militia, who were to 
engage the enemy, while he brought up the main army. 
Lee, entitled to the command of this advanced division, 
first refused to take it, and then changed his mind most 
unluckily, and displaced Lafayette, to whom the duty had 
been assigned when Lee declined. 

Meantime, Clinton, much harassed by the New Jersey 
militia, and with his men suffering from heat and thirst, 
and dropping out of the ranks, was slowly making his way 
north. At Crosswicks, which he reached just in time to 
save the bridge, he found Washington on his flank. To 
escape, he had to take a quicker route ; so sending ahead 
his baggage-train, which was from eight to twelve miles 
long, he swung toward Freehold, making for the Never- 
sink Hills and the coast. On the 26th he encamped at 
Monmouth Court-House, while his left was still at Free- 
hold. The American army was now only eight miles 
distant, and the advance under Lee but five miles away. 
Washington sent orders to Lee to attack the next day, as 
soon as the British resumed their march ; but Lee made 
no plan, and the next morning did nothing until the mili- 
tia actually opened fire on Knyphausen's rear-guard, who 
turned to meet them. As the militia retired they met 
Lee, who engaged the enemy and then began to fall back 
and move his troops about here and there with the intel- 
ligent idea of cutting off isolated parties of the enemy, 
an unusual way of beginning a general action. His men 
were ready and eager to fight ; but they became confused 
by Lee's performances, lost heart, and finally began to 
retreat, while Clinton, seeing his advantage, pushed for- 



320 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

ward reinforcements. Washington, hearing that Dicken- 
son and his New Jersey militia were engaged, sent word 
to Lee to attack and that he would support him. He was 
pressing on with the main army, the men throwing away 
their knapsacks and hurrying forward through the intense 
heat, when word came to him that Lee was retreating. 
He would not believe it. He could not conceive that 
any officer should retreat as soon as the enemy advanced, 
and when he knew that the main army was hastening for- 
ward to his support. Filled with surprise and anger, he 
set spurs to his horse and galloped to the front. First he 
met stragglers, then more and more flying men, then the 
division in full retreat. At last he saw Lee, and riding 
straight at him, asked, with a fierce oath, as tradition says, 
what he meant by retreating. Self-control was gone, and 
just wrath broke out in a storm. The dangerous fight- 
ing temper, so firmly kept in hand, was loose. Lee, im- 
pudent and clever as he was, quailed and stammered. 
The question was repeated. There was and could be no 
answer. Lee went to the rear, to a court-martial, and to 
private life, sinking out of history, not without a strong 
suspicion of treason clinging to him, to join Conway and 
the rest of the unenviable company of adventurers who 
wanted to free America by obtaining high rank for them- 
selves and admiring the enemy. 

This particular scene was soon over and the real work 
then began. The master had come at last. Like Sheridan 
at Cedar Creek, the retreating men rallied and followed 
the Commander-in-Chief. The broken division was re- 
formed in a strong position, the main army was brought 
up, the British were repulsed, and Washington, resuming 
the offensive drove the enemy before him and occupied 



FABIUS 3^3 

the battle-ground of the morning. Then night fell, and 
under cover of darkness Clinton retreated as fast as he 
could, dropping men as he went, and finally reaching his 
fleet and New Yolk before the Americans could again 
come up with him. 

Contrast this fight with Long Island, and it can be 
seen how an American army had been made in the inter- 
val. Thrown into disorder and weakened by the timid 
blundering of their General, the advance division had been 
entirely rallied, the main army had come up, the battle 
had been saved, and a victory won. Had it not been for 
Lee, it would have been a much more decisive victory, 
and Clinton's army would have been practically destroyed. 
As it was, he lost some 500 men at Monmouth to the 229 
of the Americans. Along his whole retreat he lost nearly 
2,000. " Clinton gained no advantage," said the great 
soldier at Sans Souci watching events, "except to reach 
New York with the wreck of his army." 

Washington was victor at Monmouth, and had lost 
Brandywine and Germautown, but he had won the cam- 
paign. The British had been driven from the Middle 
States as they had been expelled from New England, for 
they held nothing now but the port of New York, which 
was actually covered by the guns of their fleet. They had 
tried to reach Philadelphia from the north, and had been 
baffled and forced back by Trenton and Princeton. They 
had approached and occupied it from the south, but it was 
worthless and a source of weakness unless they could 
establish a line to New York which would enable them 
to control both cities and the intervening country. This 
Washington had prevented by holding Howe fast in Phila- 
delphia and checking any movement by land. When 



324 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

spring came it was evident that to attempt to hold both 
cities, isolated as they were, required two armies, and under 
existing conditions was a source of weakness which threat- 
ened a great disaster. Clinton had no choice but to re- 
treat ; he lost a battle and 2,000 men in doing so, and 
reached New York with a beaten and broken arm v. New 
York he continued to hold, Newport he held for a time, 
and that was all. There were some affairs of outposts, 
some raids here and there, some abortive invasions, but 
the Middle States had gone as New England had gone 
from the British, swept clear by Washington's campaigns. 

As the evacuation of Boston closed the British cam- 
paign for the control of New England, so the battle of 
Monmouth ended all effective military operations to re- 
cover English supremacy in the Middle States. The vic- 
tory at Monmouth also marks the beginning of the best 
work of the American army, finally made such by hard 
fighting and by the discipline and drill of Valley Forge. 
Never aarain did the Continental Army under Washington 
suffer defeat. From the victory at Monmouth, the last 
general engagement in the north, to the surrender of York- 
town, the army of Washington endured much, but they 
were never beaten in action when he led them. This was 
the result of two years of victory and defeat, of Trenton, 
and of Germantown, of steady fighting and patient effort. 
But, above all, it was the outcome of two bitter winters 
and of Vallev Forgfe, when the man sneered at in those 
days as "Fabius"not only kept "life and soul" in his 
army, but in the American Revolution, which thai army 
represented when it faced alone the power of England. 



A 



CHAPTER XIII 

HOW THE WEST WAS SAVED 

FTER the Battle of Monmouth the war in the 
Northern Department dragged on through the 
summer without any general campaign, and with- 
out any results which affected the final outcome, except 
that thus far time was always on the side of the Ameri- 
cans, and the failure of the British to advance was equiva- 
lent to defeat. On July 8, 1778, the French fleet, under 
D'Estaing, appeared off New York, but they were unable 
to get their large ships-of-the-line through the Narrows, 
and could not attack the British squadron. D'Estaing 
then desired to sail away and conquer Newfoundland, 
which would have been a wholly barren undertaking, but 
Washington persuaded him to go to Newport and join in 
a combined naval and land attack upon the British, who 
held that place with 6,000 men. For this purpose Wash- 
ington called out the militia of Massachusetts and Rhode 
Island, and sent a brigade from his own small army, to- 
p-ether with Greene and Lafavette, to the aid of Sullivan, 
who commanded in that district, but everything went 
wrong from the start. The French arrived on August 8th, 
weie kept outside by Sullivan for ten days, and then ran 

325 



326 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

in past the batteries and forced the British to destroy their 
men-of-war and galleys in the harbor. 

Meantime Sullivan, without notice to D'Estaing, 
crossed over to the island of Newport, and had hardly done 
so when Howe appeared outside with his squadron. 
D'Estaing put to sea to fight him, but both fleets were 
scattered and severely damaged by a heavy storm. Howe 
was forced to put back to New York, while D'Estaing 
returned to Newport, only to announce that he must go 
to Boston to refit. The Americans were disheartened and 
disgusted. The combined attack had broken down, and 
the militia began to leave for their homes. The storm, 
moreover, had wrecked their camp and largely ruined 
their ammunition, so that they presently found themselves 
with only 6,000 men, cooped up on an island with an enemy 
whose forces were already superior, and would soon begreat- 
lv increased by the arrival of Clinton with reinforcements 
4,000 strong. There was nothing for it but to withdraw to 
the mainland, and the retreat had begun when the British 
attacked. Greene, instead of defending, changed the re- 
treat to an advance, charged the British and drove them 
back to their works. The American loss was two hun- 
dred and eleven, the British two hundred and sixty. It 
was a well-fought action under adverse circumstances 
but it led to nothing, for the expedition had failed, and 
bore fruit only in recriminations between the Americans 
raid their allies, which it took time and effort to allay. 
Clinton, arriving as usual too late, returned to New York, 
having done nothing but burn the shipping at New Bed- 
ford, and rob the farmers of Martha's Vineyard of some 
cattle and money. A year later he withdrew the remain- 



HOW THE WEST WAS SAVED 3 2 7 

ing troops from Newport. The British occupation had 
been pointless and fruitless, and had led to nothing but 
the abortive naval attack of the French and the retreat 
of the Americans. 

The affair at Newport was, however, typical of the 
sporadic fighting of the summer, differing only from the 
rest in the presence of the French and English fleets, 
and in the considerable number of men engaged. The 
British did nothing effective. They could hold no ex- 
tensive country, nor could they control any important 
military line which would divide and hamper the States. 
A foray into New Jersey in September and the defeat of 
some surprised militia, the burning of shipping at Little 
Egg Harbor and the wasting of the neighboring country 
by Captain Ferguson in October, an Indian raid into 
Cherry Valley in November, which failed to take the 
fort, but burned houses and scalped some thirty persons, 
mostly women and children, completed the sum of Clin- 
ton's military achievements during his first summer of 
command. When winter came he was again settled in 
New York, the only place he held, except Newport, 
while Washington cantoned his men so as to form a line 
of defence from Long Island Sound to W T est Point and 
thence south to the Delaware. His head-quarters were 
at Middlebrook, but he held Clinton fast, and permitted 
him to have nothing but the ground upon which his men 
camped and which the guns of the English fleet covered. 

It is easv to see now how completelv the military situa- 
tion in the North was making in favor of the Americans ; 
that all that region had been wrested from England and 
could never be regained by her. The English had been 



328 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

campaigning in the Middle and New England States for 
three years, and they had lost, or failed to retain, every- 
thing except New York, where they had landed, and the 
outlying Newport. In other words, they could hold a 
town under the guns of their fleet, the Americans having 
no organized navy, and that was the extent of their 
power. This, of itself, showed that they were utterly de- 
feated in the attempt to conquer, and could not hold 
America by force of arms ; but the real state of the case, 
which is so obvious now, was not so plain then. The fact 
which most impressed those who were righting America's 
battles in 1778 was that there was practically no general 
government. The Revolution had been carried forward by 
Washington and his army, who were permanent active 
forces, and by vigorous, although sporadic, uprisings of 
the armed people when invasion actually threatened their 
homes. But of effective government and executive power, 
outside the army and the diplomatic representatives, there 
was practically none. Their own enforced flight from 
Philadelphia, the condition of the army, and Washington's 
vigorous letters, had made Congress feel that perhaps all 
the reasons for defeat were not to be found in the short- 
comings of their General. They therefore turned to the 
long-standing business of forming a better union, and, 
after much labor, produced the Articles of Confederation. 
Beyond the fact that such action showed a dim awakening 
to the dire need of efficient national government and 
better union, this instrument was quite useless. The sep- 
aratist, States- rights theory prevailed so far in the con- 
struction of the Confederation, that the general govern- 
ment had no real power at all, and could only sink, as it 
afterward did, into imbecile decrepitude. Moreover, this 



HOW THE WEST WAS SAVED 329 

feeble scheme, which had no value, except in teaching- 
people what to avoid, could not go into effect until rati- 
fied by each State, and this process took so long that the 
war was nearly over before the poor Confederation got 
enough life in it to begin dying. 

The efforts for better government thus came to but 
small results, and Congress stumbled along as best it 
could, trying to borrow money abroad, and getting little 
except in France ; trying to persuade the States to give, a 
very uncertain resource, and finally falling back on emis- 
sions of more paper money, fast-sinking and worthless. 
Without executive power, with no money, with constant 
and usually harmful meddling in military matters, with 
no authority to raise soldiers, the Congress of the United 
States presented a depressing spectacle. It would have 
forboded ruin and defeat had it not been for the fact that 
each State had an efficient Government of its own, which 
prevented anarchy, while the people, accustomed to self- 
government, managed to carry the war along in some 
fashion — haltingly and expensively, no doubt, but still 
always stubbornly forward. 

In the field of diplomacy, the Congress showed to 
great advantage, as it had from the outset. Some of the 
ablest men had been sent abroad, and had proved them- 
selves the equals of the diplomatists of Europe. Every- 
where on the Continent, at every Court they visited, the 
American envoys made a good impression and secured, at 
least, good-will. The great triumph was the French alli- 
ance, and although elsewhere the tangible results at first 
seemed less than nothing, the good-will then obtained and 
the favorable impression made were before long to bear 
fruit in loans which carried on the war, and in the assured 



33o THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

neutrality of the Northern powers. In any event, the 
Americans had at least succeeded in alienating Europe 
from England, which at that time seemed to enjoy her 
"splendid isolation" less than she has professed to do in 
more recent days. One European power, however, showed 
itself distinctly hostile, and that was the very one upon 
which the Vergennes relied for support, and which was 
finally drawn into war against England. This was Spain, 
which manifested an instinctive hatred of a people in arms 
fighting for their rights and independence. To Spain, 
decrepit and corrupt, the land of the Inquisition, and the 
owner of a vast and grossly misgoverned colonial em- 
pire, nothing hut enmity was really possible toward re- 
volted colonists fighting for independence, free alike in 
thought and religion and determined to govern them- 
selves. Spanish statesmen hung hack from the invita- 
tions of Vergennes, and gave the cold shoulder to Art hut- 
Lee when he went to Burgos. They hated England, un- 
doubtedly, and were more than ready to injure her and to 
profit at her expense, but they had no love or good wishes 
for her rebellious colonies. Florida Blanca, the prime min- 
ister, held off from the French, tried to bargain with the 
English, and aimed at nothing but Spanish advantage in 
North America. When France, heedless of his wishes, 
formed the American alliance, he was filled with profound 
disgust, all the deeper because his hand had thus been forced. 
He drove a hard bargain with France in the treaty which 
pledged Spain to join in the war against England, refused 
to recognize the independence of America, and was left 
free to exact from the Americans, if he could, as the price 
of Spain's support, the control of the Mississippi Valley, 
of the Great Lakes, and of all the vast region between the 



HOW THE WEST WAS SAVED 331 

great river and the Alleghanies. The policy of Spain 
aimed, in fact, at the possession of the North American 
Continent, and the whole future of the United States was 
staked on the issue. Yet even while Spanish statesmen 
wrangled with Vergennes, and schemed and intrigued for 
Spanish dominion on the Mississippi, the question was be- 
ing settled far out among the forests by a few determined 
backwoodsmen, with rifles in their hands, no knowledge 
of diplomacy, and a perfectly clear idea of what they want- 
ed to do and meant to have. 

The early intrigues with the Southern tribes, and the 
war-parties of Indians who came with Burgoyne and de- 
serted him when the tide turned against him, formed but 
a small part of the English efforts in this direction. The 
British policy was a far-reaching one, and was designed to 
unite all the tribes of wild Indians against the Americans, 
harry the borders with savage warfare, and prevent the 
Western expansion of the United States. It was not ex- 
actlv a humane or pleasing policy, but it was much in 
favor with the Ministry, although it led to some sharp crit- 
icisms in Parliament, especially when the item of scalping- 
knives came up in a supply-bill. None the less, it was a 
scheme fraught with possibilities, and, properly handled, 
might have caused lasting injury to the United States, not 
by Burgoyne's war-parties, which did more harm than 
good to their employers, but by destroving the settlements 
beyond the mountains and checking for a time the West- 
ern movement of the American people. 

So far as uniting the Northwestern and Western tribes 
went, the English were singularlv successful, and secured 
their active alliance and co-operation. The Lieutenant- 
Governor of the Northwest, whose head-quarters were at 



332 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

Detroit, was Henry Hamilton, and to him the department 
of Indian warfare against the colonies was entrusted. The 
task could not have been committed to more capable hands, 
so far as organizing the Indians and sending them out on 
the war-path was concerned. Where he failed was in the 
largeness of conception which was needed to tell him the 
vital point at which to strike. In i 7 76 he had his alliances 
secure, and for the next two years he turned the savages 
loose upon the settlers of the American border. It was a 
cruel, ferocious war, as all Indian wars are, marked by am- 
bush, murder, fire, pillage, and massacre. It fell not on 
armies and soldiers, but on pioneer farmers, backwoods- 
men, and hunters, with their wives and families. To the 
prisoners who were brought in, Hamilton was said to have 
been entirely humane ; but the Indians were rewarded for 
their burnings and pillagings, and for the slaughter of Am- 
erican settlers. They earned their wages by evidences of 
their deeds, and the proofs furnished were human scalps, 
which were bought and paid for in Detroit. It is of no 
consequence who paid for these hideous trophies ; it was 
done at an English town and fort, with English money, 
and the frontiersmen who nicknamed Hamilton the " Hair- 
buyer" reached the essential truth. 

This method of warfare was cruel in the extreme and 
caused untold anguish and suffering, but it had no effect up- 
on the fortunes of the Revolution at the point where Hamil- 
ton made the greatest exertion. In carrying out his orders to 
push back the American frontier, he directed the weight of 
his attack against the borders of New York, Pennsylvania, 
and Virginia. This caused an incalculable amount of mis- 
ery to individuals, but made absolutely no impression upon 
the strong, populous, and long-settled States against which 



HOW THE WEST WAS SAVED 3U 

the attack was aimed. Very different was the case to the 
south of the Ohio, where bold hunters and adventurers had 
pushed beyond the mountains, and, just as the Revolution 
was beginning - , had established in the forests the half-dozen 
little block-houses and settlements which were destined to 
be the germ of the future State of Kentucky. These out- 
posts of the American advance across the continent were 
isolated and remote, separated from the old and well-estab- 
lished States of the seaboard by a range of mountains, and 
by many miles of almost pathless wilderness. If they had 
been broken up, the work would have been to do all over 
again ; for they were not branches from the main trunk, like 
the outlying settlements of Pennsylvania and Virginia, but 
an independent and separate tree, transplanted and growing 
on its own roots. If Hamilton had come down with a 
force of his own and given the Indians white leadership, 
he might have systematically uprooted and destroyed these 
Kentucky settlements and Hung back the American border 
to the east of the mountains ; but he preferred to direct 
his main forces elsewhere, and left it to the Indians alone 
to deal with the Kentuckians. He may have thought, and 
not without reason, that this would be sufficient to destroy 
these few and scattered settlements, the importance and 
meaning of which he, no doubt, underestimated. If he so 
thought he erred gravely, for he failed to reckon on the 
quality and fibre of the men who had crossed the moun- 
tains and settled in the beautiful woods and glades of Ken- 
tucky. The Indians did their part zealously and faithfully, 
and, for two years after Hamilton had unchained them, 
Kentucky well deserved the name of the " dark and bloody 
ground." It was continuous fighting of the most desper- 
ate kind, band to band, and man to man. Ambushes, sur- 



334 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 




prises, hand-to-hand struggles, hair-breadth escapes, impris- 
onment among the savages, torture, murder, and the stake 
were part of the daily life. The block-houses were suc- 
cessfully held with stubborn 
courage, the women battling 
side by side with the men. It 
was savage fighting, filled with 
endless incident, where per- 
sonal prowess played a great 
part, and with a certain bar- 
barous simplicity and utter in- 
difference to life and deadly 
peril, which recall the heroes 
of the Nibelungenlied, remote 
kinsmen of these very men 
who now stood at death-grips 
with the Indians in the depths 
of the American forest. 

This battle of the Ken- 
tuck)' pioneers, under the lead of Boone, Logan, Kenton, 
and the rest, forms one of the finest and most heroic 
chapters in our history, too largely lost sight of then 
and since in the greater events which, on the Atlantic 
seaboard and in the cabinets of Europe, were deciding 
the late of the Revolution. None the less it was a very 
great and momentous fact that these hunters and farmers 
held firm and kept the distant wilderness a part of the 
United States. They rise up to us from the past as Ind- 
ian-lighters and explorers, hunters, trappers, and advent- 
urers, but we must not forget that they were primarily 
and more than anything else settlers. They had entered 
into the land to possess it, conquer it, and hand it down 



COLONEL DANIEL BOONE. 



From a portrait by Chester Harding, 070;,,/ by 
Colonel R. T. Durrett, Louisville, Ay. 




GENERAL GEORGE ROGERS CLARK. 

From an original miniature ascribed to J. IV. J arvis and owned by Mr. Jefferson K dark, of 

St. Louis, Mo. 



HOW THE WEST WAS SAVED 33? 

to their posterity. So they clung to their forts and set- 
tlements with grim tenacity and much desperate fight, and 
were satisfied, as well they might be, to beat off invasion 
and yield no inch of ground. But among them was one 
leader who was not content with this — a man with " em- 
pire in his brain," with an imagination that peered into 
the future, and a perception so keen as to be almost akin 
to genius. This man was George Rogers Clark. He was 
a young Virginian, twenty-five years old, one of the best 
and most daring of the leaders who were holding Ken- 
tucky against the Indian allies of Great Britain. But 
Clark was not satisfied with a mere defence of the settle- 
ments. On the western edge of the great wilderness 
which lay between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi 
were the old, long-established French settlements, which 
had passed to the British crown with the conquest of Can- 
ada. Clark's restless spirit and quick imagination be- 
came filled with the idea that the way to defend Kentucky 
was to carry the war into the Illinois country and attack 
England there, instead of being content to beat her off 
at home. In this plan he saw, as he believed, the true 
method of breaking down the Anglo-Indian campaign, and 
also — which probably moved him much more — of adding 
all this vast region to the territory of the United States. 
Without breathing a word of the plans he was weaving, he 
sent out two young hunters to penetrate into the Illinois 
countrv and get him information. His scouts went forth, 
and reported on their return that the French sometimes 
joined the British and Indian war-parties, but that they 
took little interest in the revolutionary struggle, and stood 
much in awe of the American backwoodsmen. This en- 
couraged Clark, for he believed that under these conditions 



333 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



he could deal with the French ; and he forthwith set out, 
in Octoher, 1777, and made the long and toilsome journey 
back to Virginia to get aid and support for his expedition. 
When he reached the capital he saw Patrick Henry, 
who was then Governor, and laid his plans before him 
with all the eager enthusiasm of youth and faith. Very 
fortunately, Henry, too, was a man of imagination and 




ardent temperament. He was touched and convinced by 
the young soldier's brilliant and perilous conception, and 
gave him his hearty sympathy, which was much, and all 
the material aid he could command which, in the stress 
and strain then upon Virginia, was very little. Clark 
received from Henry public authority to raise men to go 
to the relief of Kentucky, secret instructions to invade 
Illinois, and a small sum of money in depreciated cur- 
rency. Thus meagrely provided, everything depended on 



HOW THE WEST WAS SAVED 339 

Clark's own energy and personal influence. Very fort- 
unately, these were boundless ; and although he encoun- 
tered every difficulty, nevertheless, by spring he had 
raised a hundred and fifty men, and started in flat-boats 
down the Ohio, taking with him some families of settlers. 
On May 27th he reached the Falls of the Ohio, and there 
established a post, and left those families who had remained 
with him to form a settlement, destined to become the 
city of Louisville. Here he heard of " the French Alli- 
ance," which, he felt sure, would help him in his progress ; 
and here some Kentuckians joined him, under the lead of 
Kenton, as well as a company from Holston, most of 
whom deserted when they learned the distant and danger- 
ous purpose of the expedition. When every preparation 
had been made, Clark carefully picked his men, taking 
only those who could stand the utmost fatigue and hard- 
ship, and formed them into four companies of less than 
fifty each. With the lightest possible equipment, he 
started on June 24th, and shot the falls at the moment of 
an eclipse of the sun, which his followers, for the most part, 
regarded as a good omen. Descending the river safely, 
Clark landed nearly opposite the mouth of the Tennessee, 
and there met a party of x'Vmerican hunters, who gladly 
joined him, and who were able to inform him fully about 
the situation at Kaskaskia, the principal town, which he 
meant to attack. They said that Rocheblave, the Com- 
mandant, who was devoted to the British cause, had his 
militia well drilled, and was looking out for an attack ; 
that the French had been taught to dread the Americans, 
and that if warned of their coming would undoubtedly 
fight, but if surprised might be panic-stricken. Clark im- 
mediately conceived the idea that if the French were first 



34Q THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

thoroughly frightened and then had opportunity to dis- 
cover that the Americans meant them no harm, the revul- 
sion of feeling would swing them to his side. To take 
the town by surprise, therefore, became absolutely essen- 
tial. With this purpose, he set out at once, marched for 
fifty miles through dense forests, then across open prairies, 
where he was nearly lost, and finally, on the evening of 
July 4th, reached the Kaskaskia River, three miles from 
the town. Capturing the people on an outlying farm, he 
learned from them that the rumors of the coming of the 
Americans had died away recently, and that the garrison 
of Kaskaskia were off their guard. Still, Rocheblave, 
although he had been unable to get aid from Detroit, had 
two or three times as many men as Clark, and, if warned in 
season, was sure to fight hard. But everything yielded to 
the young Virginian's coolness and energy. He procured 
boats, ferried his men silently across the river in the dark- 
ness, and then marched swiftly to the town in two divi- 
sions, one of which surrounded the town itself, while the 
other followed Clark to the fort, where he placed his rifle- 
men, and then, led by one of his prisoners, slipped in him- 
self through the postern. Within the great hall in the main 
building of the fort lights were burning brightly, and the 
sounds of music floated out upon the summer night. In- 
side there was a ball in progress, and the light-hearted, 
pleasure-loving French Creoles were dancing and making 
merry. To the music and dancing of the Old World 
civilization, the Hare of torches and the figure here and 
there of a red man crouching or leaning against the wall 
gave a picturesque touch of the wide wilderness in which 
the little town was islanded. On went the dance and the 
music. The pretty Creole girls and their partners were 












r^.^ 






/ 



.-'• 



T 




CLARK OX IlIE WAV TO KASKASKIA. 



HOW THE WEST WAS SAVED 343 

too deeply absorbed in the pleasures of the moment to 
notiee that an uninvited guest had come quietly among 
them and was watching the dancers. Suddenly one of 
the Indians lying on the floor, with the canine instinct of 
a hostile presence, looked up, gazed a moment at the 
stranger, and then sprang to his feet and gave the war- 
whoop. As the wild cry rang through the hall the startled 
dancers turned and looked, and there they saw standing 
by the door, with folded arms, the grim, silent figure of 
Clark in his fringed buckskin, the American backwoods- 
man, the leader of the coming, conquering race. The 
music ceased, the dancing stopped, the women screamed, 
but Clark, unmoved, bade them dance on, and remember 
only that they were under the rule of Virginia, and not of 
Great Britain. At the same instant his men burst into 
the fort and seized all the military officers, including the 
Commandant, Rocheblave. 

The surprise was complete and town and fort were now 
in the hands of the Americans. Clark ordered every street 
secured, and commanded the people to keep their houses, 
under pain of death. He wished to increase the panic of 
terror to the last point, and no finely trained diplomatist 
of the Old World ever played his cards with greater sub- 
tlety. In the morning a committee of the chief men of 
the town waited on Clark to beg their lives, for more they 
dared not ask. Clark replied that he came not to kill and 
enslave, but to bring them liberty. All he demanded was 
that they should swear allegiance to the new Republic, of 
which their former King was now the ally. The French, 
caring little for Great Britain, were so overcome by the 
revulsion from the terror which had held them through 
the night that they took the oath with delight and pledged 



344 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



their loyalty to Clark. Then the American leader prom- 
ised that they should have absolute religious freedom, and 
the priest, a most important personage, thus became his 
firm supporter. In a word, the whole population rallied 
round Clark, and became, for the moment at least, zeal- 
ous Americans. Rocheblave alone, deserted and helpless, 




CLARK'S SURPRISE AT KASKASKIA. 

They sato standing by the door, with folded ,ir>f:s, the grim, silent figure of Clark. 

undertook to be mutinous and insulting, and so Clark sent 
him off a prisoner to Virginia, where he thoughtfully broke 
his parole and escaped. 

Despite the brilliancy of his victory, Clark's difficulties 
were really iust beginning - . Cahokia and Vincennes lol- 
lowed the example of Kaskaskia — eagerly accepted the rule 
of the United States and raised the American flae* — but he 



HOW THE WEST WAS SAVED 345 

had no men to garrison either place, and all he could do 
was to send an officer in each instance to take command. 
He had thus made himself master of a great country, and 
had less than two hundred absolutely trustworthy troops 
with whom to hold it. Even these men were anxious to 
be off. They had done the work for which they had en- 
listed, they wanted to go home, and Clark, with difficulty, 
persuaded a hundred to remain. Then he told the French 
that he, too, meant to go, whereupon, as he expected, they 
implored him to stay, which he consented to do if they 
would furnish him with men to fill his depleted ranks. This 
done, he turned his attention to the much more thorny and 
perilous problem of the Indians. He drew the leaders of 
the tribes to Cahokia, and, by a mixture of audacity and 
firmness, backed by a little actual violence, with much as- 
tute diplomacy and good temper, he broke the English con- 
federacy and secured pledges of peace. Through all this 
difficult and anxious work Clark kept steadily drilling his 
new Creole recruits and getting his little army on the best 
possible footing. He was beset with perils, but his high 
spirits never flagged, and he played his parts of statesman, 
diplomatist, and soldier with unwearied energy and ability. 
Meantime to Hamilton, planning an expedition against 
Fort Pitt, came the amazing news that the Americans had 
invaded Illinois and taken Kaskaskia and then Vincennes. 
These were evil tidings, indeed, for this was a blow at the 
very heart of the whole British campaign in the West. 
Hamilton, who was both determined and energetic, imme- 
diately abandoned his expedition against Fort Pitt, sent 
out French couriers to recall the Western Indians to their 
allegiance and rouse them again to war, while he himself 
rapidly organized an expedition for the relief of the Illinois 



346 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

towns. On October 7th all was ready, and Hamilton left 
Detroit with a strongforce of five hundred English, French, 
and Indians, well provided with artillery and every muni- 
tion of war. After a long and toilsome journey of seventy- 
one davs, they reached Vincennes on December 1 7th. The 
French deserted Helm, the American Commandant, as 
quickly as they had abandoned his predecessor, and went 
over to Hamilton, who took possession of the town and 
the fort without difficulty. Then came the crucial moment. 
Hamilton had three times as many men as Clark, was nearer 
his base of supplies, and knew that the Indians were re- 
turning to their old alliance. At all hazards, he ought to 
have gone to Kaskaskia at once and crushed Clark then 
and there, as he could easily have done. But, although 
Hamilton was a good soldier and an extremely competent 
man, he lacked the little touch of imagination or genius, 
call it what we will, which was absolutely needful at that 
moment. He concluded, very reasonably, that it was the 
dead of winter, that a march through the Illinois wilder- 
ness to Kaskaskia was a rather desperate undertaking, and 
that the affair could be dealt with just as well and with 
much greater safety in the spring. So he sent most of his 
men back to Detroit, to return in the spring witli a power- 
ful force, a thousand strong, and sweep over the whole 
country. He then suspended operations for the winter, and 
contented himself with holding Vincennes with the hun- 
dred men he kept with him. It was all reasonable, and 
sensible, and proper, and yet it was a fatal mistake, for 
opposed to him was a man who had just the spark of ge- 
nius and imagination which he himself lacked. 

Clark heard of Hamilton's arrival at Vincennes with 
feelings which we can guess, for he knew how helpless he 



HOW THE WEST WAS SAVED 347 

was in the presence of such a superior force, and he sup- 
posed that Hamilton would do at once what he would have 
done in the former's place. Nevertheless he put on a bold 
front. The French began to waver, but he held them in 
line ; the bolder and more adventurous stood by him, and 
he made preparations for a vigorous defence. Still the 
British did not come, and on January 27th a French trader 
came into Kaskaskia and told Clark that Hamilton was 
wintering in Vincennes and had with him less than a hun- 
dred men. Then the difference between the commonplace 
man and the man of imagination flashed out. Clark would 
do what Hamilton should have done. He would not wait 
until spring to be overwhelmed, he would take Vincennes 
and Hamilton now. He first equipped a galley with guns, 
and sent her to patrol the Wabash and cut off British rein- 
forcements. Then, on February 7th, he started with a 
hundred and seventy men to march two hundred and forty 
miles. For the first week all went well. They marched 
rapidly, killed abundance of game, and, encouraged by 
Clark, fed freely and sang and danced about the camp-fires 
at night. Then they came to the branches of the Little 
Wabash, now one great stream five miles wide, for the cold 
had broken, and the thaw had brought floods. Clark in some 
way got pirogues built, and in three days had everything 
ferried over. This brought them so near Vincennes that 
they dared not fire, and so could not get game. They 
struggled on through the flooded country, could not find a 
ford, and camped by the Wabash on the 20th, having had 
no food for two days. The Creoles began to lose heart 
and talked of returning, but Clark laughed, told them to 
go out and kill deer, and kept steadily on. The next day 
he got them ferried over the Wabash and on the same side 



348 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

with Vincennes. They could hear the morning and even- 
ing guns from the fort, so near were they, and yet the worst 
was still to come. All day they struggled along, wading 
over the flooded land, and when they came to a place where 
the canoes could find no ford the line halted, and it looked 
as if ruin had come. But Clark raised the war-whoop, 
plunged in, and, ordering them to start their favorite songs, 
led them through, for no one could resist his leadership. 
They camped, wet, shivering, and hungry, on a hillock six 
miles from the town. The night was very cold, and ice 
formed over the surrounding water ; but the sun rose 
clear, and Clark, making a passionate speech, told them 
victory was before them, and plunged into the water. His 
men followed, in Indian file, with twenty-five told off at 
the end to*shoot any who tried to turn back. On they went 
across the Horse Shoe Plain, four miles of wading in wa- 
ter, sometimes breast high. The strong helped the weak, 
Clark urging and appealing to them in every way. It 
was a desperate, almost a mad undertaking but they kept 
on through the cold water and the floating ice, and got 
through. In the afternoon they crossed a lake in their 
canoes, and were then within two miles of the town. The 
prey was in sight, so the men looked to their rifles, dried 
their ammunition, and made ready for the fight. 

From a prisoner captured while hunting, Clark learned 
that there were two hundred Indians just come to town, 
and this gave Hamilton a great superiority in numbers. 
Clark had it in his power to surprise Vincennes com- 
pletely, as he had Kaskaskia, and trust to that advantage 
to overcome the odds against him. He reasoned, however, 
that if he sprang upon the town both French and Indians 
would light, because they would be suddenly plunged into 



HOW THE WEST WAS SAVED 35 1 

battle without the opportunity of choice. On the other 
hand, if they knew of his coming, he thought the Indians 
might desert, and felt quite sure that the French would 
remain neutral. Accordingly, he sent in his prisoner to 
announce his coming, and at sundown started for the 
town, in two divisions. All went as he had hoped. The 
French retreated to their houses in terror. The Indians 
drew off or held aloof, some of them, with the engaging 
simplicity of their nature, offering to help Clark, who evi- 
dently struck them as a man likely to win victories. Ham- 
ilton meantime had sent out a party, having seen the Amer- 
ican camp-fires of the night before ; but these men did not 
wade through icy water, found nobody, got nowhere, and 
slipped back into the fort the next day, where the British 
were soon closely besieged, for Clark opened fire on the 
fort at once, and, under cover of night, threw up an in- 
trenchment. From this vantage-ground the American 
riflemen picked off Hamilton s artillerymen, so that the 
guns, which did but little execution at best, were quickly 
silenced. Clark then summoned the fort to surrender. 
Hamilton declined, and asked for three days' truce, which 
Clark refused, and ordered the backwoodsmen to open fire. 
While these negotiations were going on, one of Hamil- 
ton's scalping parties came back and ran right into Clark's 
men. They were all killed or captured, and the six Ind- 
ian prisoners were tomahawked and thrown into the 
river, which showed the tribes that Hamilton's power was 
at an end, and made his own French volunteers from De- 
troit w T aver and lose heart. Hamilton had now only his 
English to depend on, and, in the afternoon of the 24th, 
sent out a flag. There was some bickering, and Clark 
made, apparently, some unpleasant remarks about mur- 



352 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

dcring women and children, and buying scalps, after which 
Hamilton and his seventy-nine men who had remained 
true to him surrendered as prisoners of war. Most of the 
prisoners were paroled, but Hamilton and twenty-seven 
others were sent to Virginia. 

The victory was complete. It was a very shining and 
splendid feat of arms. In the dead of winter, with a large 
part of his force composed of men of doubtful loyalty 
and of another race, Clark had marched across two hun- 
dred and forty miles of flooded wilderness. With no arms 
but rifles, he had taken a heavily stockaded fort, defend- 
ed by artillery and garrisoned by regular troops under the 
command of a brave and capable soldier. The victory 
was not only complete, but final. Clark had broken the 
English campaign in the West ; he had shattered their Ind- 
ian confederacy, and wrested from them a region larger 
than most European kingdoms. He had opened the way, 
never to be closed again, to the advance of the American 
pioneers, the vanguard of the American people in their 
march across the continent. When the treaty of peace 
was made at Paris, the boundary of the United States 
went to the Lakes on the North, and to the Mississippi 
on the West, and that it did so was due to Clark and his 
riflemen. It is one of the sad questions, of which history 
offers so many, why the conqueror of Vincennes never 
reached again the heights of achievement which he at- 
tained in the first (lush of manhood. But, whatever the 
answer may be, the great deed that he did was one of the 
glories of the Revolution which can never be dimmed, and 
which finds its lasting monument in the vast country then 
wrested from the British crown by American riflemen in- 
spired by the brilliant leadership of George Rogers Clark. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE INVASION OF GEORGIA 

THE first idea of the English Government in deal- 
ing with its revolted colonies was to subdue the 
North, where the Rebellion had broken out. For 
this purpose they had seized Boston, New York, and 
Philadelphia, and planned with such care the expedition 
of Burgoyne. They had been driven from Boston ; Bur- 
goyne had been beaten and his army made prisoners, and 
they had been forced to retreat from Philadelphia. New 
York alone remained. It was evident to everybody that 
the attack from the North had failed, so the Ministry de- 
termined, as a last resort, to conquer America from the 
South, and Lord George Germain proceeded to plan this 
new movement as carefully as he had that of Burgoyne. 
Invasions were to be made, under Prevost, from Florida, 
whither troops had already been sent, while more were to 
be detached from New York to aid in the conquest of 
Georgia, and a separate expedition of 5,000 men was also 
to be directed against that State. Ignorant of the fact 
that their Western campaign was even then being shat- 
tered by Clark, and equally uninstructed as to the hard- 
fighting backwoodsmen in the settlements beyond the 
mountains, the Ministry also intended to let loose the 
Indians on the western border of the Southern States. 

353 



354 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

Thus, with attacks along the sea-coast, the seizure of the 
ports, Indian war upon the frontier, and a strong support 
from the loyalists, Germain and his King and colleagues 
hoped to conquer the Southern colonies, bring them un- 
der the British Mag, and, that done, once more assail and 
try to divide the Middle and Eastern States. It was an 
extensive and sufficiently intelligent plan, and no effort 
was spared to carry it to success. Ships and troops were 
furnished in abundance ; the flames of a bitter civil war 
were lierhted in the Carolinas and Georgia, and the last 
struggle of England to retain her Colonies proved the 
most protracted, and at times the most successful, of any 
she had hitherto attempted. 

A beginning was made in the autumn of 1778 by Pre- 
vost sending out two expeditions from East Florida com- 
posed of regulars and Tory refugees from Georgia and 
South Carolina. They were repulsed from the Fort at 
Sunbury and at the Ogeechee River, but they ravaged the 
country, robbed the houses, and carried off slaves, plate, 
and cattle. Robert Howe, who was in command in Geor- 
gia, undertook a retaliatory expedition against St. Augus- 
tine, but the movement was ill-planned ; his men suffered 
from disease in the swamps, and he was forced to retire 
without having accomplished anything. Hardly had he 
returned when Colonel Campbell appeared off Tybee with 
3,000 men from New York. He passed the bar success- 
fully- and advanced on Savannah. Howe attempted to 
oppose him, with less than one-third as many men, and 
those raw militia. The effort naturally was entirely vain. 
( Campbell outflanked the Americans, routed them, and, 
with but trilling lo>s. captured Savannah, taking nearly 
five hundred prisoners and a large amount of stores and 



THE INVASION OF GEORGIA 355 

munitions of war. Campbell then offered protection to all 
who would support the British cause in arms, and the 
American soldiers who refused to enlist were sent to die 
of fever on prison-ships. Many of the inhabitants sub- 
mitted, others fled to South Carolina, or to the hill-coun- 
try of the interior, thence to carry on the conflict as best 
they might. It was evident that the British war in the 
South was to be absolutely merciless, and that property was 
to be destroyed and plundered without let or hindrance. 

Cheered by the news of the taking of Savannah, Pre- 
vost marched up, reducing Sunbury on the way, while 
Campbell, with eight hundred men, took Augusta. The 
State had thus fallen completely and quickly into the 
enemy's hands, and been again subjected to the Crown. 
The ease and rapidity of the British success were due to 
the fact that Georgia was the weakest and most thinly pop- 
ulated of the colonies. The only troops were militia hast- 
ily called out, and they were badly equipped and ill-led. 
Nor was the situation improved by the new commander of 
the Southern department, Benjamin Lincoln, sent down 
there by Congress. Lincoln was a worthy man, brave and 
patriotic, but he had seen little service, had been unfortu- 
nate in what he had seen, was slow, and without military 
capacity. He collected some 1,100 men and took up his 
position on the South Carolina side of the Savannah River. 
Then he and his opponents looked at each other, neither 
daring to cross. While they waited, it seemed, for a mo- 
ment, as if fortune was turning again to the American side. 
Prevost sent out a detachment to Beaufort, and Moultrie 
whipped them and drove them back to their ships, while an- 
other and stronger party, sent to ravage the western part of 
South Carolina, was attacked by Colonel Pickens, routed, 



356 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 




GENERAL BENJAMIN LINCOLN. 
From a portrait fainted by C. I!'. PtaU in i;S/. 



and driven back beyond the Savannah. Encouraged by 
these events, and having received large reinforcements of 

militia from both North and 
South Carolina, Lincoln made 
the fatal mistake of detach- 
ing Ashe, with 1,500 men, to 
occupy Augusta and then de- 
scend the river to Savannah. 
Without discipline or any 
military precautions, ill - led 
and inexperienced, Ashe and 
his men offered an easy prey 
to the British, who, on March 
3, 1779, CLlt them off, routed 
them, captured their arms and 
cannon, and made prisoners 
of all but some four hundred and fifty, who escaped by 
swimming the river. Undeterred by this loss of a fourth 
of his entire army, which showed how unfit it was as yet 
to undertake offensive operations, and how much it needed 
care in handling, drill, and organization, Lincoln decided 
to march against Savannah with the troops he still had left. 
Instead of waiting for him, Prevost very wisely crossed the 
river with 3,000 men and his Indian allies, drove Moultrie 
before him, and made direct for Charleston. There all 
was confusion. Defences were prepared, but there was 
only the militia behind them. Washington and his army 
were far away, no help came from Congress, many people 
began to regret independence, others urged taking a neu- 
tral position between Great Britain and the United States, 
while the voice of the majority seemed to be in favor of 
surrenderinsf the town to avoid the horrors of a storm. 



THE INVASION OF GEORGIA 357 

When Prevost appeared, parleys and negotiations were 
opened instead of batteries, and while these proceeded the 
British learned, by an intercepted letter, that Lincoln was 
advancing to the relief of the city. Prevost immediately 
abandoned the siege, took to his boats, and sailed back to 
Savannah. Lincoln, having failed to reach Prevost, retired 
to the hill-country with only about eight hundred men, to 
avoid the intense heat of the summer, and the English were 
left in complete possession of Georgia. 

They were not destined, however, to remain long un- 
disturbed, and the attack came from an unexpected quar- 
ter. On September 1st, D'Estaing, who had been cruising 
successfully in the West Indies, appeared suddenlv off 
Savannah and captured four British men-of-war. lie at 
once sent word to the Government of South Carolina, ask- 
ing them to join with him in reducing Savannah, and 
then, unassisted, landed his own forces, and summoned 
Prevost to surrender. While notes were being exchanged, 
Colonel Maitland, by a forced march, succeeded in bring- 
ing up the troops from Beaufort, and, thus reinforced, 
Prevost refused to capitulate. 

The South Carolinians responded eagerly to the invi- 
tation of D'Estaing, but, no army being ready and in the 
field, it took time to get out the militia, and it was Sep- 
tember 23d before Lincoln arrived to aid the French. 
Prevost had employed the interval well. He had worked 
day and night with the ample slave labor at his command, 
and had thrown up a strong line of redoubts and intrench- 
ments. The result was that the clays slipped by and the 
besiegers made no progress. At last, on October 8th, 
D'Estaing announced that he could no longer endanger 
his fleet by remaining in this exposed situation, with the 



358 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 




storms of autumn at hand, and an assault was accordingly 
determined upon for the following day. It was a desper- 
ate undertaking, and the event 
proved its rashness. One col- 
umn, under Count Dillon, be- 
came entangled in a swamp, 
was exposed to the British bat- 
teries, and never came into ac- 
tion at all. The other, led by 
D'Estaing himself, and com- 
posed of French and South 
Carolinians, assailed the works 
in front. It was a gallant as- 
sault, and was continued for an 
hour. An American flag and 
a French flag were planted on 
the ramparts, but the allies 
could not effect a lodgement. While they were still strug- 
gling to hold their ground, a well-directed charge, led by 
Maitland. drove them back, and the day was lost. The 
attack was ill-advised and unfortunate, but was delivered 
with great courage and daring. D'Estaing was hit twice ; 
Pulaski fell mortally wounded, and gave his life to the 
country he had come to serve. The Americans lost two 
hundred men, the- French nearly six hundred, while the 
loss of the British was very small. Prevost and Maitland 
defended their position with the utmost firmness and brav- 
ery. Their works were good, their arrangements excel- 
lent, and they fairly earned their victory. 

This repulse was a heavy blow to the cause of the Revo- 
lution in the South. The French retired to their ships and 
the tleet withdrew. Having failed to accomplish anything 



VT PULASKI. 

i engraving by Ant. OUszczynski. 



THE INVASION OF GEORGIA 361 

when, for the first time, they controlled the sea and also 
had a large body of regular troops to support them, the 
Americans had a gloomy outlook for success by their own 
unaided efforts. The militia of Georgia and South Caro- 
lina retired to their homes, while Lincoln withdrew to 
Charleston with the remnants of his army. Without men, 
without money, and without apparent ability for effective 
preparation, South Carolina seemed helpless, if the enemy 
continued their invasion. The loyalists in the South, more- 
over, were very numerous and far more active than in the 
North. They now came forward zealously in support of 
the Crown, while disaffection began to spread among the 
people, who saw themselves exposed to war without, as it 
seemed, any support from the General Government or any 
means of effective resistance or vigorous leadership among 
themselves. 

Georgia, upon which the first attack had been made, 
passed in this way wholly into the power of the British, who 
re-established their government, and then proceeded to 
pillage and plunder everyone suspected of favoring the 
Revolution. Slaves were seized and sold everywhere, plate 
and all valuables that could be found were taken, houses 
and plantations were wrecked and ruined. The war in the 
South thus assumed, at the start, a character of ferocity 
and terror which had been wanting, as a rule, in the 
North, where the British never succeeded in controlling 
any large region of country, and were constantly held at 
bay and brought to battle by Washington and his army. 
This policy of destruction, accompanied, as it was, with 
much burning and slaying, had at first an effect of paralyz- 
ing opposition, but in the end it developed a resistance 
all the fiercer and more stubborn because inflamed by the 



3 62 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

sense of wrong, suffering, and cruelty. When the French 
fleet, however, sailed away, and Lincoln withdrew, dis- 
heartened, with his broken army to Charleston, nothing" 
could have looked fairer on the surface than the prospects 
of the British. They had actually regained one colony, 
which they held firmly with the armed hand, and, as far as 
Virginia, the whole South, as yet undefended and unpre- 
pared and with disaffection rife among the people, lay open 
to their invasion. 

The attack was not long delayed. Clinton, having 
received reinforcements from England and withdrawn 
the troops from Rhode Island, set sail on December 26, 
1779, with 8,500 men, in the ileet commanded by Ad- 
miral Arbuthnot. After a stormy voyage, from which the 
ships suffered severelv, Clinton reached Tybee toward the 
end of January, where he was reinforced by 3,000 men, 
and more were ordered from New York. 1 le then began 
to move on Charleston. Lincoln had come to the city 
with 2,000 men, and, yielding to the wishes of the people, 
decided to remain and defend the town, which, with his 
little force, was a hopeless undertaking and a blunder of 
the first magnitude. Against such overwhelming num- 
bers there was nothing to be done by lighting ; and his 
one plain duty was to abandon the city and hold the field, 
as Washington had done at Philadelphia. Even if he was 
unable to light, he then would have offered a rallying 
point for resistance-, and would have been able to gather 
troops and check the enemy's movements. As it was, 
he simply devoted himself and his army to a feeble and 
useless resistance, and to certain capture. His North 
< 'arolina militia left him, but he allowed seven hundred 
veterans of the Virginian line to join him, thus involving 



THE INVASION OF GEORGIA 3^3 

in certain disaster a body of tried troops which would of 
themselves have made the nucleus of an effective army if 
they had been held outside the city. 

The British moved slowly but surely. Their army 

Q-P&, <v/A, V^ w ^ Q^^y^^ G^?ry- fS'^s.*, - fV/^« ('<£. *£# Yfv 
A*rH.<y^ j/'St'^ic*) - 




PART OF THE ARTICLES OF CAPITULATION AGREED ON AT THE SURREN- 
DER OF FORT MOULTRIE. 

Reproduced in facsimile from the original in the Emmet collection, Lenox Library. 

advanced deliberately along the coast, and it was not until 
April 9th that Arbuthnot ran past Fort Moultrie and 
made himself master of the harbor. Even then there 
was time for Lincoln to withdraw and take to the open 
country. But he staved on, quiet and helpless, where he 



364 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

was, and watched the British, now reinforced by Cornwallis 
with three thousand men, gradually draw their lines and 
parallels until every approach was closed and all escape 
was impossible. On May 12th the city surrendered, and 
Lincoln and his army were made prisoners of war. 

It was a great disaster, but the loss of the city was 
the least part of it. The fatal blow was in the capture 
of Lincoln's army, the only organized American force in 
the South. Washington, too distant to be heard in time, 
had protested against the attempt to hold the city, and, 
when the news that Arbuthnot had crossed the bar ar- 
rived, urged immediate withdrawal. But his advice was 
too late, and would have been unheeded in any event. 
Then came the inevitable capitulation, and the result he 
had foreseen. No centre of resistance was left. No 
American army, however small, was in the field and the 
British ranged the State unopposed. One expedition 
marched up the Savannah to Augusta. Another took 
the post in Ninety-six, and a third, crossing the Santee, 
came on a portion of the Virginia line intended for 
Charleston, and, under the lead of Tarleton, massacred 
most of them after they had surrendered. Panic seized 
upon the country. A general confiscation of property 
was ordered, as had been done in Georgia ; and those 
who had surrendered found no safety. Ruin was threat- 
ened to all who had supported the American cause ; and 
the proclamation of June 1st, offering pardon to every 
one who came in and submitted, was superseded on June 
3d by another proclamation, which Clinton put forth just 
before his departure, declaring that all who failed to take 
the oath of allegiance would be treated as rebels, and 
would suffer the extreme penalties of the law. South 






1 ^ 



^ 



^ 



fill! 

I Hi 
opsH & 

i ^ I i jh* 






^ 






■h 










THE FIRST AND LAST PARTS OF SIR HENRY CLINTON'S OFFER OF PARDON TO REB- 
ELS IN /?So. 

From the original document belonging to the Emmet collection in the Lenox Library. 



3 66 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

( 'arolina, like Georgia, now lay at the feet of the British. 
For six weeks all resistance ceased, but the savage policy 
of the English Generals soon began to bear fruit. They 
had conducted their military operations well, and were in 
possession of two States where the loyalists were numer- 
ous and powerful. Instead of seeking to conciliate and 
divide, they took the course of ruining and killing in all 
directions. Friends as well as foes were involved, and 
the people soon saw that there was no safety except in 
armed resistance. No braver people lived than those of 
the Southern States, and they were thus put with their 
backs against the wall to fight for all that made life worth 
having. They were stunned at first by their misfortunes ; 
but they were soon to rally, and then the British policy 
of rapine and ruin was destined to bring its natural results. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE SOUTH RISES IN DEFENCE 

THREE weeks after the fall of Charleston, Sir Henry 
Clinton wrote home to the Ministry : " I may 
venture to assert that there are few men in South 
Carolina who are not either our prisoners or in arms with 
us." The assertion was not extravagant, for the State 
seemed to lie prostrate at the foot of its conqueror. Yet, 
although the native loyalists were numerous and active, 
the submission of the mass of the people was more appar- 
ent than real. Many of them, stunned by the surrender of 
the capital, and well aware that the only American army in 
the State had ceased to exist, were ready to yield and ac- 
cept British rule in silence. If they had been properly and 
judiciouslv dealt with, they could have easily been kept 
quiet ; and if not loyal, they would at least have been neu- 
tral. But the policy of the British Commanders made this 
impossible. To the people of South Carolina, brave, high- 
spirited and proud, they offered only the choice between 
death, confiscation, and ruin on the one side, and active 
service in the British army on the other. Thus forced to 
the wall, the South Carolinian who was not a convinced 
loyalist quickly determined that, if he must fight for his 
life in any event, he would do his fighting on the side of 
his country. Major James, for example, went into George- 

3 f »7 



"jFtifly -r**~r%, ^c*^As tfnfi -t***-*^ «**' S&- -*~^>-*~c~£ -r?-i<*srTT**T—s 



■^t^-^^t- 




ju£^ JU*%~ &-*~^ £^4~~ /<^—. 

9 - — ^ 





FACSIMILE (REDCICED)OF THE FIRST AND LAST PARIS OF PATRICK 
HENRY'S LETTER OF INSTRUCTIONS TO GEORGE ROGERS CI. ARK. 

(From " The Conquest of the North-vest," by William E. English.) 



THE SOUTH RISES IN DEFENCE 3 r, 9 

town to offer, in behalf of himself and his neighbors, to 
remain neutral. The usual choice was brutally offered him 
by the Captain in command. James replied that he could 
not accept such conditions ; and the gallant Captain there- 
upon said that James was a "damned rebel," and that he 
would have him hanged. Then, with a chair, James 
knocked down the representative of Great Britain, left him 
senseless, and went off with his four brothers to take up 
arms against England and fight her to the death. In one 
form or another, barring perhaps the little incident of the 
chair, James and his brothers were typical. The people 
began to rise in all directions, take their arms and withdraw 
to the woods and swamps, thence to wage a relentless, if 
desultory, warfare against their invaders. 

All that was needed to direct the popular force thus 
roused to life and make it as effective as a guerilla war 
could be, was proper leadership, and that was found at 
once. Among the few who were neither prisoners nor in 
arms with the British, and to whom Sir Henry Clinton so 
carelessly referred, was Francis Marion, soon to become 
very well known to the British, and called by them, both 
in hatred and in fear, the " Swamp Fox." He was of 
Huguenot descent, and had served in the old French war, 
taken arms early against England, fought at Charleston 
and Savannah, and had been saved from surrender with 
Lincoln by a broken ankle, which had forced him to leave 
the city before it was surrounded. Others of the " few " 
mentioned by Clinton were Davie, Pickens, and Davidson, 
all familiar with partisan warfare, all brave and able to rally 
men around them. The most important, however, in the 
Clintonian exception, was Thomas Sumter, a Virginian by 
birth, like Marion a soldier of the old French war, and of 



37° 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



the Revolution from the beginning. He was Colonel of 
a Continental regiment, and in recognition of this fact the 
British turned his wife out of doors and burned his house. 
It was not an exceptional performance at all, but quite 
characteristic of the war which Tarleton opened by the 
slaughter of the surrendered \ uoinians at the Waxhaw, 




A BRITISH WAGON-TRAIN SURPRISED BY MARION. 



which was inflamed by the bitterness between loyalist and 
patriot, both active in arms, and which was marked by lire 
and sword among the peaceful villages as well as in the 
soldiers' camps. Net even if a common incident, it was 
• Hie well calculated to edge the blade of a bold lighter like 
Sumter when he saw his wife a wanderer and his home in 
ruins. Rallying a few followers about him, all men like 



THE SOUTH RISES IN DEFENCE 



5/ 



the user of the chair, with wrongs to avenge, he organized 
and armed them as best he could and prepared to strike. 

Opportunity soon came. July 
12, 1 7S0, Captain Huck was 
out on a patrol with twenty 
mounted infantry and sixty 
loyalists. He had reached 
what is now Brattonsville, 
some twenty miles from Fish- 
ing Creek, the day before, and 
had passed the night at the 
house of one Williamson and 
had taken some prisoners on 
the estate and then threatened 
the life of Mrs. Bratton, who 




GENERAL ANDREW PICKENS. 



From a copy by John Stolle of the original p 
ing by Thomas Stilly, owned />y Mr. Clarence 
%ingham. Charleston. S. C. 



lived hard by and whose hus- 
band was with Sumter. The 
next day was to be given to 
the usual work of destruction. But negligent watch was 
kept and Colonel Bratton, one of Sumter's men, with about 
seventy-five followers, reached the place unobserved during 
the night and divided his force into two parties which ad- 
vanced along the road from opposite directions. Captain 
Huck, roused from sleep, rushed out, mounted his horse, 
and tried to rally his troops against the enemy, charging 
in upon him with loud shouts. The Americans were inferior 
in number, but they were unexpected ; they were desperate, 
and they had the advantage of a complete surprise, for it 
was understood that the country was conquered, and the 
spirit of the people broken. All was soon over. Huck 
was killed with most of his men, and his party was de- 
stroyed. It was the first slight change in the long run of 



372 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

defeat. Many heavy reverses were still to come, but a be- 
ginning on the right side at least had been made. The 
great fact made evident in this skirmish was that the peo- 
ple of the South were up in arms and much in earnest. 

The victory of Colonel Bratton too, although small in 
itself, was nevertheless potent in its results. Cornwallis 
had undertaken to hold the State by taking possession 
of scattered posts, and so long as the people were submis- 
sive this answered very well, but when the country rose 
around him every outlying garrison was in danger. The 
fight of Sumter's men and their complete destruction of 
Huck and his party also had an immediate effect upon 
the public mind. Men ceased to think of yielding to 
the British as the only resource, and many who had given 
way in the first panic returned to the patriots' cause. A 
large detachment under Colonel Lisle, who had been 
forced into the British army in this way, left the English 
colors and joined Sumter, who, thus strengthened, at- 
tacked the British at Rocky Mount. He did not take 
the post, but a week later he surprised the British at Hang- 
ing Rock, routed the loyalist regiment, sacked their camp, 
and inflicted severe losses upon the regiment of the Prince 
of Wales. He then drew off to the Catawba settlements, 
and recruits began to come in to him rapidly. The war 
was spreading, the people were taking up arms, and Corn- 
wallis, instead of being able to invade North Carolina, 
confident in the possession of South Carolina and Georgia, 
found that as he advanced the country behind him broke 
out in revolt, and that he really held little more than the 
ground which he could occupy. 

On the other hand, the full effects of the disaster at 
Charleston, where Lincoln had cooped himself up, only to 



THE SOUTH RISES IN DEFENCE 373 

surrender, became more than ever apparent. Sumter and 
Marion and Pickens, it is true, had stemmed the tide set- 
ting toward submission. They had roused the people, and 
forced the British to fight for everything they held, but 
they could do no more than carry on a partisan war of post 
attacks and skirmishes. They had merely the men they 
could collect themselves, under the rudest discipline, and 
so poorly armed that they were obliged to depend in large 
measure upon victory over their enemies for the guns, 
powder, and small arms, which were only to be procured 
as the prizes of a successful battle. The crying need was 
an organized, disciplined force, no matter how small, which 
would form a centre of resistance and to which men could 
rally. This Lincoln ought to have preserved, and this 
force it was now sought to supply once more from the 
North. 

Washington, before the fall of Charleston, ever ready 
to take risks himself in order to help against invasion 
elsewhere, now, as in the case of Burgoyne, detached from 
his small army DeKalb, with the Maryland division and 
the Delaware regiment, amounting to 2,000 men in all, 
and sent them South. They moved slowly, for transpor- 
tation was difficult, and DeKalb was unfamiliar with the 
country. To the call for aid Virginia responded gener- 
ously, authorizing a levy of 2,500 men, and the small force 
of the State already in arms, some three to four hundred 
strong, joined the Continental forces. Still it was June 
20th before DeKalb reached North Carolina, only to find 
when he arrived there no magazines, no preparation, and a 
militia anything but subordinate. Nevertheless, here at 
least was the beginning of an army for the South — a good 
body of well-disciplined troops from the Continental army 



374 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

quite sufficient to form a rallying point. All that was re- 
quired to develop it was a competent General. For this 
difficult work Washington had picked out Greene — un- 
doubtedly the best selection that could have been made — 
but Congress thought otherwise, and chose their favorite 
Gates to take command in the Southern department with 
an entirely independent authority. They honestly be- 
lieved, no doubt, that Gates would clear the South, as he 
had in their opinion vanquished Burgoyne, but even if the 
victory at Saratoga had been in any way due to him, 
which it was not, he now had before him a widely differ- 
ent task. Here, in the Carolinas, he succeeded to no 
Schuyler, who had hampered the invaders and checked 
their march by skilfully prepared obstructions, nor did he 
come to an army flushed with success, and growing every 
day by the arrival of well-armed recruits. In the South 
there was no American army ; the British, instead of being 
concentrated in a single united force, held all the posts in 
two States, and were able to go where they pleased, and 
draw supplies from the coast, instead of being cut off from 
all communication as Burgoyne had been. The people, 
stunned by the disasters which had fallen so rapidly upon 
them, were only just rousing themselves to fight, and in 
that sparsely settled region were singularly destitute of 
arms and equipments, which, with their seaports in British 
hands, could only be obtained after long delays from the 
North. It was a situation which demanded not onlv great 
military capacity, but patience, endurance, and the ability 
to avoid a decisive action until there had been time to 
rally the people to the nucleus of regulars and make an 
army able to march and fight, to win victories and sustain 
defeats. 



THE SOUTH RISES IN DEFENCE 375 

Such were the difficult but imperative conditions of 
success in the South, and Gates disregarded every one of 
them. As soon as he arrived in DeKalb's camp he made 
up his mind to march at once on Camden, a most impor- 
tant point, which he apparently expected to take without 
trouble. On July 27th, having sent Marion out to watch 
the enemy — almost the only intelligent step taken at this 
time — Gates started for Camden along a line which led 
him through a poor and barren country, where his army 
was hard pressed for subsistence. On August 3d he was 
joined at the crossing of the Pedee by Colonel Porter- 
field with a small but excellent body of Virginians. 
Thence he moved on against the advice of some of 
his best officers, and formed a junction with Caswell and 
the North Carolina militia, who were so ill-organized 
and badly disciplined that Colonel Williams, of Mary- 
land, actually rode through their lines without being 
challenged. With these dangerous reinforcements Gates 
marched on cheerfullv toward the British, who, under 
the command of Lord Rawdon, an active and enterpris- 
ing officer, had called in their outlying parties and 
taken up a strong position on Lvnch's Creek. Instead 
of marching up the creek, turning Lord Rawdon's Hank, 
and then moving on Camden, which under these con- 
ditions would probably have fallen an easy prey, Gates 
lingered about for two days, doing no one knows what, 
and then, bending to the right, took the road from Char- 
lotte and advanced to Clermont, where he was joined 
on August 14th by Colonel Stevens with seven hundred 
Virginia militia. The same day Sumter came into camp 
with four hundred men, and asked for as many more, in 
order that he might cut off the British baggage-train and 



3 ;6 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

convoy. It seems almost beyond belie/, but Gates granted 
this request, and deliberately allowed the best fighter in the 
South to leave his army with eight hundred men when he 
was on the eve of battle, in the presence of a ^strong, well- 
disciplined, well-commanded enemy, and when his own 
forces were largely composed of raw militia, who, unlike 
Sumter's men, had never been under fire. Even more 
incredible than the fact is the explanation. Gates actu- 
ally did not know how many men he had under his com- 
mand. He thought he had seven thousand, and, finding 
that he had but three thousand and fifty-two, he coolly 
said, "That will be enough for our purpose." The Eng- 
lish spies, who seemed to have had the run of his camp, 
no doubt made a more accurate and earlier count than 
that of the American General. 

While Gates was thus weakening himself in the face 
of the enemy, Cornwallis arrived in the British camp and 
determined to surprise the Americans. With this purpose 
he started on the morning of August 15th, and Gates, 
who had set forth at the same hour, blundered into the 
arms of the advancing British, not having apparently the 
slightest idea where his enemies were or what they were 
doing. Colonel Armand, a French officer, was in front 
with a small body of cavalry, and gave way before the 
British advance. Gates, on learning that he was in the 
presence of the enemy, determined, after a hasty con- 
ference with his officers, to light. His position was a bad 
one, for although his flanks were protected by a marsh, 
this narrowed his front and gave advantage to the smaller 
but compact, well-led, and well-disciplined force of the 
British. When it was seen that the enemy was forming 
to advance, Stevens was ordered to charge with the Vir- 



THE SOUTH RISES IN DEFENCE 377 

ginia militia, utterly raw troops, who had only joined the 
army the day before. Cornwallis, to meet them immedi- 
ately, threw forward his right wing, consisting of his best 
troops under Webster. The Virginians gave way at once 
without firing, dropped their guns, and fled in a wild panic. 
The next line, consisting of the equally raw North Caro- 
lina militia, followed the example of the Virginians with- 
out a moment's hesitation, except for one regiment, which 
fired a few rounds. This left only the Continental troops, 
the regular soldiers of the Maryland and Delaware line, 
under DeKalb, to meet the whole British army. These 
men stood their ground so stubbornly and successfully 
that DeKalb, not realizing fully the utter disaster on the 
left wing, ordered a charge, and drove the British back. 
No men could have fought better than these soldiers of 
Washington's army in the face of disaster. Eight hun- 
dred of them fell on the field, and DeKalb, wounded 
eleven times, died a prisoner in the hands of the British. 
But they were fighting against hopeless odds ; they were 
outnumbered and outflanked, and, after rallying twice gal- 
lantly in the midst of their enemies, they finally broke and 
retreated. 

To defeat these Continental soldiers cost Cornwallis 
nearly four hundred men — a severe loss to an army no larger 
than his, and one he could ill afford. The American army, 
however, was utterly broken and dispersed. Colonel Will- 
iams said that DeKalb's fate was " probably avoided by 
the other Generals only by an opportune retreat," which 
was a euphemistic way of stating that Gates went off with 
the militia and that very night reached Charlotte, sixty 
miles away, which was a highly creditable feat of hard rid- 
ing. He was closely followed by Caswell, the North Car- 



378 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

olina Commander, and others, and the next day, still rest- 
less apparently, he betook himself to Hillsborough, where 
the North Carolina Legislature was in session, for he al- 
ways seems to have been more at home with congresses 
and legislatures than with armies. Either an abounding 
charity or a love of paradox has tempted some recent writ- 
ers to say that Gates has been too harshly judged, but it is 
difficult to discover any error he could have committed 
which he did not commit. He came down to form an 
army, where none existed, around a nucleus of regular 
troops, not to take command of one already organized. He 
should not have fought until he had made his army, disci- 
plined it, marched and manoeuvred with it, and tested it in 
some small actions. Instead of doing this he took the Con- 
tinentals and marched straight for the main British army, 
picking up reinforcements of untried, undisciplined militia 
on the way. Arriving within striking distance of the ene- 
my, he actually did not know how many men he had, and 
sent off eight hundred of his best troops, the only militia 
apparently who had seen fighting. When he stumbled 
upon the enemy he put his poorest troops in front, without 
apparently direction or support, and first of all the militia 
who had been with him only twenty-four hours. Colonel 
Stevens of Virginia, a brave man, said that the rout was 
due to the "damned cowardly behavior of the militia," and 
as he commanded one division of them he probably knew 
what he was saying. But to lay the fault on the militia is 
begging the question. The unsteadiness of perfectly green 
l loops in the field is well known, and these men ought not to 
have been brought into action against regulars at all at that 
moment — least of all should they have been put in the van to 
resist the onset of seasoned veterans without instructions 



THE SOUTH RISES IN DEFENCE 379 

or apparent support. The defeat of Camden was due to 
bad generalship, and resulted in the complete dispersion of 
the militia, and the sacrifice and slaughter of the hard-fight- 
ing Continentals. Sumter even was carried down in the 
wreck. He had cut off the convoy and baggage with per- 
fect success, but the victory at Camden set the British free 
to pursue him. He eluded Cornwallis, but, encumbered 
and delayed by his prize, he was overtaken and surprised 
by Tarleton. Half his force was killed, wounded, or made 
prisoners ; the rest were scattered, and it is said that Sum- 
ter, a few days later, rode into Charlotte alone, without a 
saddle and hatless, to begin all over again the work of form- 
ing a regiment, which he performed as usual with great 
energy and success. 

Cornwallis did not follow up his victory very energeti- 
cally, but there was really little need to do so. It was the 
darkest hour of the Revolution in the South, which now 
lay well-nigh helpless and quite open to the enemy. A 
second army had been swept away, and again no organized 
American force held the field. The three Southern Col- 
onies were, for the time at least, conquered, if not subdued, 
and the way seemed clear for the British march upon Vir- 
ginia, the great State which was one of the pillars of the 
American cause. Vet it was just at this gloomy time that 
the first grievous disaster came to the British arms, from a 
quarter where no danger was expected, and where it seemed 
as if armed men sprang up from the earth. 



CHAPTER XVI 

KING'S MOUNTAIN AND THE COWPENS 

BEFORE moving on Virginia it was deemed desir- 
able by the British Commanders to trample out 
the last embers of rebellion still smouldering in 
the interior of the conquered States. For this purpose 
Cruger and a detachment of loyalists went after the Amer- 
icans under Clarke, who was attacking Augusta. Clarke 
was defeated, driven off, and forced to take to the moun- 
tains, while the victorious loyalists hung some thirteen 
prisoners, a practice in which the British and their allies 
were just then fond of indulging. With the same general 
object, another and larger force, composed chiefly of loyal- 
ists, but with some regular troops also, was sent to sweep 
along the borders of the Carolinas and complete the abso- 
lute reduction of the country. This division was under 
the command of Patrick Ferguson, a son of Lord Pitfour, 
a soldier of twenty years' experience in Europe and Amer- 
ica, a gallant and accomplished officer, and one of Corn- 
wallis's most trusted Lieutenants. He was the very model 
of a brilliant and dashing partisan leader, and by his 
winning manners was especially successful in encouraging 
the loyalists, and in drawing them out to enlist under his 
standard, which they did in large numbers. tie was less 
merciless than Tarleton, for he did not massacre prisoners 



KING'S MOUNTAIN AND THE COWPENS 381 

nor permit women to be outraged after the manner of 
that distinguished officer, but he did a good deal of burn- 
ing and pillaging and hung rebels occasionally. He was a 
brave, effective, formidable fighter, and the pacification of 
the borders could not have been intrusted to better hands. 
Ferguson, in the performance of his task, advanced to 
the foot of the mountains, and sent word by a prisoner 
that he would penetrate the hills and destroy the villages 
there if the people sent aid to their brethren of the plain 
and sea-coast. It was an ill-timed message and had results 
very different from those expected by the sender. Beyond 
the mountains which Ferguson was skirting with his army 
lay the frontier settlements of Franklin and Holston, des- 
tined to develop one day into the State of Tennessee. The 
inhabitants were pioneers and backwoodsmen of the same 
type as those who followed Boone and Logan and Clark 
in Kentucky. They had cleared their farms in the wilder- 
ness, and, while they drove the plough, or swung the axe, 
the rifle was never out of reach. Like the men of Ken- 
tucky, they had been doing stubborn battle with the Ind- 
ians stirred up against them by the British, and they had 
taken but little part in the general movement of the sea- 
board colonies. Isaac Shelby, indeed, had crossed the 
mountains with two hundred men, in answer to an appeal 
for help from the Carolinas, but with this exception the 
men of the West had had no share in the Revolution 
other than the desperate work by which they had held 
their own against the savages. Now they heard that Fer- 
guson was on the edge of their settlements, threatening 
them with fire, sword, and halter. This brought the war, 
in very grim fashion, to their own doors, and as they were 
neither a timid nor a peace-loving race, they did not 



382 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

wait for the enemy to come, but set out to meet him. 
Shelby heard the news first, and rode in hot haste to the 
home of Sevier, the other County Lieutenant, to carry the 
tidings. At Sevier's settlement there was a barbecue, a 
horse-race, and much feasting going on, but when Shelby 
gave his message the merrymakers all promised to turn 
out. Thence Shelby rode back to raise his own men, and 
sent a messenger to the Holston Virginians, who had 
already been out in one campaign, and were even now or- 
ganized to go down and fight Cornwallis. At first they 
refused to change their plans, but on a second and more 
urgent summons they too agreed to join their brethren of 
the mountains. 

They all assembled at the Sycamore Shoals, on the 
Watauga, on September 25th. Four hundred of the Vir- 
ginians came under William Campbell, 500 from the 
more southern settlement under Shelby and Sevier, and 
160 refugees under McDowell, of North Carolina. The 
next day they started, after a stern old Presbyterian min- 
ister had prayed and asked a blessing upon them. They 
gathered in an open grove, and, leaning on their rifles, 
these backwoodsmen and wild Indian fighters bowed their 
heads and listened in silence to the preacher who blessed 
them and called upon them to do battle and smite the foe 
with the sword of the Lord and Gideon. 

Then they set out, a strange-looking army, clad in 
buckskin shirts and fringed leggings, without a tent, a 
bayonet or any baggage, and with hardly a sword among 
the officers. But every man had a rifle, a knife, and a 
tomahawk, and they were all mounted on wiry horses. 
Discipline in the usual military sense was unknown, and 
yet they were no ordinary militia. Every man was a lighter, 



KING'S MOUNTAIN AND THE COWPENS 383 

bred in Indian wars, who had passed his life with horse 
and rifle, encompassed by perils. They were a formidable 
body of men — hardy, bold to recklessness, and swift of 
movement. They pushed on rapidly over the high table- 
land covered with snow, and then down the ravines and 
gorges — rough riding, where there was hardly a trail — 
until, on the 29th, they reached the pleasant open low- 
lands near the North Forks of the Catawba. Here they 
were joined by more than three hundred North Carolina 
militia, led by Colonel Cleaveland, a hunter and Indian 
lighter, quite the equal in prowess and experience of any 
who had crossed the mountains, and with a long list of 
private wrongs to avenge, for he had been in the thick of 
the civil war and partisan fighting which, since the fall of 
Charleston, had desolated the Southern States. On Octo- 
ber 1st the forces, thus increased, passed Pilot Mountain 
and camped near the head of Cane and Silver Creeks. 
Thus far they had proceeded, as they had gathered to- 
gether, each band under the command of its own chief, 
but such an arrangement involved too much disorder 
even for so unorganized an army as this, and the next day, 
dropping all local differences and personal jealousies, they 
agreed that Colonel William Campbell should take com- 
mand of the entire expedition. On October 3d they 
started again, after Shelby had addressed them. He first 
told any man to go who desired to do so, and not one 
stirred. Then he bade them remember that each man 
must be his own officer, fight for his own hand, draw off 
if need be, but never leave the field, and when they met 
the British, "give them Indian play." Thus reorganized 
and instructed they set forth. As they marched they 
picked up small bands of refugees, and heard of a large 



3*4 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

body of four hundred militia crossing the country from 
Flint Hill to join them. They were near Gilbertown on 
the 4th, with their numbers raised now to nearly fifteen 
hundred men. Here they had expected to come up with 
Ferguson ; but the English leader, who had good eyes and 
ears and was well informed, had moved rapidly away, 
doubling and turning, and meanwhile sending dili- 
gently in all directions for reinforcements and urging the 
loyalists everywhere to rally to his support. He marched 
so rapidly and with so much cunning that he would easily 
have baffled any regular army, no matter how quick in 
motion or how lightly equipped. But his pursuers were 
no ordinary soldiers. They had passed their lives in track- 
ing game and in following or eluding savages, wilder and 
more artful than any beast of prey that roamed their for- 
ests. Now they pursued Ferguson as they would have 
hunted an Indian war-band. They rode in loose order, but 
followed the trail with the keen fidelity of hounds upon a 
burning scent. They had no bayonets and no tents, but 
they could go for many hours without sleep or food, and 
minded bad weather as little as the animals they stalked 
and killed. These " Backwater men," who had sprung up 
so suddenly from the wooded hills, were tireless and deter- 
mined, and they meant to fight. 

When they found that Ferguson was no longer near 
Gilbertown, that many of their horses were worn out, and 
that some of the militia who had joined them on foot were 
weary with marching, they did not stop for rest and refresh- 
ment, but picked out the strongest horses and the best men 
to the number of seven hundred and fifty and pressed on. 
To their minds the fact that Ferguson was retreating meant 
simply that he was afraid, and they did not intend to let 



KING'S MOUNTAIN AND THE COWPENS 385 

him escape. So, with half their number, the strongest and 
best mounted, they hurried on. They rode hard all day, 
and it was growing dark when they reached the Cowpens, 
and were there joined by the bands of militia from Flint 
Hill. On the way they had heard of bodies of loyalists, 
some very large, going to Ferguson's assistance, but they 
were not turned aside to win an easy victory and lose that 
which they had crossed the mountains to gain. They were 
a simple-minded, rough folk, and hence they were disposed 
to have one idea at a time, and cling to it — a very unfor- 
tunate propensity for their enemies at this precise moment. 
So they heeded not the loyalists making for the British 
camp, but made their final preparations, for they were near 
at last to the object of their pursuit. 

Ferguson had gradually drawn away from the moun- 
tains, but he was unwilling to leave the Western loyalists 
wholly undefended. So he moved slowly, gathering such 
help as he could, until he was as near to Cornwallis at 
Charlotte as he was to the mountaineers. Here, on Octo- 
ber 6th, he established himself in a very strong position on 
a spur of King's Mountain, just south of the North Caro- 
lina boundary. He fixed his camp upon a rocky ridge some 
seven hundred yards long, with steep wooded sides, and 
about sixty feet above the valley level. The heavy bag- 
gage-train was massed on the northeastern end of the ridge, 
and the soldiers camped between that and the southern de- 
clivities. So confident did Ferguson feel in the strength 
of his position that he did not move on the morning of the 
7th, and was probably quite willing to receive an attack. 

The " Backwater men," as the British leader had called 
his enemies, started on the evening of the 6th, and, through 
the darkness and rain, marched slowly on. The next morn- 



386 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

ing the rain was still falling, but they kept on, indifferent 
to weather, merely wrapping their blankets about the gun- 
locks. From two captured Tories they learned just where 
Ferguson was, from a Whig friend what his dispositions 
were and how he was dressed, which last little bit of in- 
formation was the death-warrant of the gallant Scotchman 
when he faced those deadly rifles. Nearer they came and 
nearer, and when within a mile of the mountain, the rain 
having ceased, they dismounted, tied their horses, and pre- 
pared for an assault on foot. The Colonels made their last 
arrangements. Campbell's and Shelby's men were to hold 
the centre and to attack in front. The left wing was under 
Cleaveland, and was formed of his men and the Flint Hill 
militia. The right wing was led by Sevier, and threw out 
a detachment which swung far around, by desperate riding 
got to the rear, and thus cut off the only avenue of escape 
before the battle was over. The countersign was " Bu- 
ford," the name of the leader whose troops had been mas- 
sacred by Tarleton after surrendering at the Waxhaw, and 
the riflemen were again ordered to follow their officers, to 
fight each for himself, to retreat if necessary, but never to 
run away, and once more to let the foe have " Indian play." 
The word of command was given, and on and up they went. 
The backwoodsmen were nearly as numerous as their ene- 
my, but the British forces had all the advantage of posi- 
tion; they were chiefly loyalists, with some regulars, but 
were all well disciplined, thoroughly drilled, and equipped 
with bayonets. Ferguson was alert and well informed, and 
yet so swift and silent were the movements of these back- 
woodsmen that he was surrounded and found himself at- 
tacked almost unawares. Suddenly the steep sides of the 
mountain seemed to start to life with armed men, and the 







to » 






KING'S MOUNTAIN AND THE COWPENS 389 

flash of the rifle flared out from among the trees, silent and 
dark but a moment before. Ferguson, however, was nev- 
er unprepared. Short as the warning was, he got his men 
in line and, blowing his silver whistle, with which he di- 
rected the charges, flung his column upon Campbell's men. 
The riflemen gave way before the bayonet and slipped 
back down the hill ; but when Ferguson turned there were 
Shelby's men swarming up the other side. Again the 
silver whistle blew, again the column formed and charged 
down, and again the mountaineers gave way. But even 
while he flung back Shelby, Campbell's men were again 
coming up, gliding from tree to tree, picking off their foes 
with deadly certainty, and constantly getting nearer the 
top. Ferguson rode from point to point rallying his men. 
The silver whistle would blow, the compact, well-disci- 
plined soldiers would charge, repel their assailants, and re- 
turn to meet another attack. The moment the red line 
paused in the charge and prepared to repulse an assault 
from another quarter, the riflemen would turn and follow 
them up the slope. So the right raged fierce] v, the British 
rallying and driving their foes back with the bayonet in 
one place only to meet them in another, and each time the 
wave of backwoodsmen came a little higher. At last, as 
Sevier's men were nearing the crest, they caught full sight 
of the gallant figure they had so long been looking for. 
The rifles rang out, and Ferguson, pierced by half a dozen 
bullets, fell dead from his horse. De Pevster, the next in 
command, bravely rallied the men, but the end was near. 
The deadly aim of the rifles had done its work. Half the 
British regulars were killed, and the rest were broken and 
dispersed. The loyalists and riflemen fought hand to hand 
along the crest of the ridge, brother with brother, kinsman 



39Q THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

against kinsman. Then the loyalists broke and fled to the 
baggage-wagons, only to find that they were completely 
surrounded. Further resistance was hopeless, and De 
Peyster raised the white flag and surrendered. The hard- 
fought fight was over. The British had lost, all told, in 
killed and disabled, between three and four hundred, and 
the Americans about one hundred and twenty. The re- 
sistance which sacrificed nearly forty per cent, of its force 
was desperate, but the British overshot, while the hunters 
and Indian fighters made all their shots tell. The victory 
was complete. Ferguson was killed, and his whole force 
either left on the field or captured. The Americans de- 
parted at once with their prisoners, and their great spoil of 
arms and equipment. They sullied their victory a few days 
later by hanging nine of their prisoners, in revenge for the 
many hangings by the men of Tarleton and Ferguson, and 
especially for the thirteen just hanged by Cruger. The 
officers, however, interfered at this point and checked any 
further executions, thirty in all having been condemned to 
death. Then, leaving their prisoners with the lowland 
militia, the men of the Western waters shouldered their 
rifles, took their spoils, crossed the mountains, and in due 
time celebrated their victory with much feasting, shooting, 
racinir, and eating of whole roast oxen at their block- 
houses and log-cabins beyond the Alleghanies. 

Cornwallis, appalled by this sudden disaster, very nat- 
ural lv feared that after their great victory the backwoods- 
men would pour down and assail him on flank and rear. 
His alarm was needless. The riflemen burst out of the 
wilderness to hunt down the man who threatened their 
dearly bought and hardly defended homes. They caught 
their enemy, killed him, captured his army, and then, the 



KING'S MOUNTAIN AND THE COWPENS 391 

thing they came for done, they disappeared among the 
Western forests as suddenly as they had come. They 
swept down from their hills like a Highland clan, won a 
complete and striking victory and withdrew, but they were 
incapable of doing the work or carrying on the patient labors 
and steady fighting of a disciplined army, by which alone 
campaigns are won. At the same time they were perfect for 
the particular feat they actually performed, of swiftly pursu- 
ing a hostile force, surrounding it, and then, without strat- 
egy or tactics, by sheer hard fighting and straight shooting, 
win a victory from which hardly a single enemy escaped. 
It was only by superior fighting that they won, for they 
were slightly inferior in numbers, very much at a dis- 
advantage in position, and without military discipline or 
proper equipment. Yet it so happened that the battle 
of King's Mountain — won without any plan or object 
beyond the immediate destruction of an invader whom 
the backwoodsmen dealt with as they would have done 
with a large Indian war-party, if they could have penned 
it up in the same fashion — proved one of the decisive 
battles of the Revolution. It turned the tide of war in 
the Southern States. From that time, with ups and 
downs, of course, the British fortunes declined, while the 
spirits of the Southern people rose at a bound. The 
back country was freed, for Ferguson and his men con- 
stituted the force upon which Cornwallis counted to sub- 
due the interior and crush out all local risings. That force 
and its very brave and efficient commander were wiped 
out of existence. The British General had lost one of 
the most important parts of his army, and his campaign 
for the future was permanently crippled in consequence. 
The immediate effect was to check his movement north- 



39 2 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



ward, and the first advance through North Carolina to 
Virginia failed. On October 14th he began his retreat 
from Charlotte, and after a hard march of fifteen days, 
through rain and mud and with scant food, he reached 
Winnsborough, near Camden. All the way his men had 







THE BAYONET CHARGE BY THE SECOND MARYLAND BRIGADE AT THE 
RATTLE OF GAM DEN. 



been attacked and shot down by the militia, something 
quite impossible before King's Mountain. Encouraged 
in the same way, Marion had again taken the field and 
begun to cut off outlying British posts. Tarleton went 
after him, burning and ravaging as he rode, but Marion 
eluded him, and then he was forced to turn back, for 
Sumter had broken out near Camden and was intercept- 
ing supplies, beating loyalist militia, and generally making 



KING'S MOUNTAIN AND THE COWPENS 393 

the life of the commanding General uncomfortable. The 
interior country, in fact, was slipping from the British 
control, and even the position of their main army was 
menaced. So Tarleton went after his old enemy with his 
usual zeal. He came up with Sumter at the Blackstock 
plantation, did not stop to consider either Sumter's posi- 
tion or numbers, and dashed at him with two hundred 
and fifty men. This time Sumter was neither surprised 
nor encumbered with baggage, and fought on ground of 
his own choosing. He repulsed Tarleton's charge, and 
then drove back the infantry with such severe loss that 
Tarleton was forced to retreat rapidly, leaving his wound- 
ed in the hands of the enemy. 

The year closed cheerfully for the Americans. Corn- 
wallis had been forced to abandon his Northern march 
and retreat. The country was up in arms, and Sumter 
and Marion threatened British posts and communications 
in all directions, while the victory at King's Mountain 
had destroyed an important part of the British force. 
But at the same time the riflemen had disappeared silent- 
ly and swiftly as they had come, and the only American 
forces were, as before, scattered bands. It is true the 
spirit of the people had revived, but there was still no 
army, and without a regular army the British could not 
be driven from the South. Twice had the central gov- 
ernment tried to supply the great defect, only to have one 
army captured at Charleston and another flung away at 
Camden. Now a third attempt was to be made, and on 
it the fate of the war in the Carolinas would turn. This 
time Congress allowed Washington to choose a Com- 
mander, and he selected Greene, as he had done in the 
first instance. He said that he sent a General without an 



394 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

army, for, generous as he was, he could now spare only 
three hundred and fifty men from the regular line. Hut 
he felt that the Commander was really the main thing, 
since experience had shown that there was abundance of 
material in the South for soldiers, and he knew that in 
this instance he sent a man who not only could make an 
army, but who would not fight until his army was made. 

Greene, thus chosen to command, at once went to 
Philadelphia, where he delivered Washington's letter and 
made his report to Congress. Then he examined all 
papers relating to his new department, and in two days 
made another report to Congress, setting forth his needs. 
It appeared that he wanted pretty much everything — 
money, men, stores, arms, and ample authority. Con- 
gress had never liked Greene over-much, but since the 
wreck of their favorite, Gates, they were in a chastened 
frame of mind, and with extraordinary promptness they 
proceeded to comply with their new General's demands. 
They assigned Steuben to the Southern department ; they 
gave Greene every possible power and authority, together 
with letters of recommendation and appeal to all the State 
legislatures. In the more important material things they 
could give less, because they had little to give. Fifteen 
hundred stand of arms was about the measure of their 
contribution, for money, men, and clothing they had not. 
Greene, the indefatigable, reached out in all directions, 
trying to beg or borrow everywhere money, clothing, 
medicine, or anything else. Pennsylvania, through Reed, 
helped him to some wagons to replace those lost by Gates, 
but he got little else. Then Greene, believing that he 
could use cavalry in the South, persuaded Congress to 
give him Henry Lee, " Lighthorse Harry," commission 



KING'S MOUNTAIN AND THE COWPENS 395 

him as a Lieutenant-Colonel and authorize him to raise a 
regiment. All these things done, or at least vigorously 
agitated, Greene set forth to his command. As he went 
he steadily kept up the work he had begun in Philadel- 
phia, demanding, urging, praying for men, money, and 
supplies to be sent with him or after him. He went with 
his story and his requests before the legislatures of Dela- 
ware and Maryland, and presented the letters of Washing- 
ton and of the Congress. He roused both States, and 
obtained pledges which were later to bear fruit. Thence 
he pressed on to Richmond, where he met Jefferson, then 
Governor, and the legislature. The spirit, the disposition 
of all were excellent, but everything was in confusion. 
Clothing could not be had, recruits were coming in slowly, 
a body of the enemy had landed in the southeast, and 
there was an infinity of work to be done before the great 
State on which chiefly he would have to rely could be 
brought to a condition where its resources would be avail- 
able. Greene gave them Steuben to take charge of their 
military affairs, set other matters in such train as was 
possible, wrote urgent letters to Congress and to Wash- 
ington, and then set forward again. Now he began to 
get reports from the scene toward which he was going — 
vague, contradictory, fluctuating reports which troubled 
him much, and seemed to presage a very troublesome 
and chaotic situation to be met and overcome. Finally, 
on December 2d, he reached Charlotte. Almost his first 
act was to answer Cornwallis's complaint of the hanging 
of prisoners at King's Mountain, by sending a list of fifty 
prisoners hanged by order of the British Commanders, and 
at the same time declaring that he did not intend to wage 
war in that fashion. But it was the work of armv-mak- 



396 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

ing which chiefly concerned him, not verbal controversies 
with Cornwallis. Unlike Gates, he at once counted his 
army instead of waiting until the eve of battle for that 
information, and the result was not inspiriting. He found 
that he had 2,300 men, who had been gathered together 
by Gates since his defeat. They were poorly equipped 
and badly disciplined. The militia were in the habit of 
going home when the humor took them, but Greene, in 
his prompt fashion and with a painful disregard for local 
customs, declared this to be desertion, shot the first of- 
fender, and demonstrated that a new commander had 
really come. While he was organizing the army he also 
examined and surveyed the rivers, found where the fords 
were, and then, instead of plunging headlong at the ene- 
my, withdrew to the fertile meadows of the Pedee and 
there formed a camp and proceeded to drill his troops and 
prepare them for work. He acted quickly, quietly, and 
without much conversation. " I call no councils of war," 
he wrote to Hamilton on December 20th. Yet, bad as 
was the condition of the weak and broken army, Greene 
was extremely fortunate in his officers. Harry Lee, the 
most brilliant cavalry officer of the Revolution, in which 
cavalry was but little used, had come with him. On the 
spot he had found John Eager Howard and Colonel Otho 
Williams, of Maryland, and William Washington, of Vir- 
ginia. These were all brave, experienced, dashing of- 
ficers, just the men who would prove invaluable to Greene. 
There was also another officer, higher in rank than any of 
these, who had come to Charlotte as soon as he heard of 
the rout at Camden. This was Daniel Morgan, of Vir- 
ginia, an abler soldier than any whom Greene found at 
Charlotte, and far more suggestive of the deeper mean- 




£1 



to ■» 
to, | 



> 



KING'S MOUNTAIN AND THE COWPENS 399 

ines of the American Revolution. Lee and Howard and 
the rest represented the rich landholders, the well-estab- 
lished aristocracy of the Colonies. They had wealth, 
position, and education as a birthright, in addition to their 
own courage and capacity. At them could not be flung 
the constant sneer and gibe of the loyalist satirist and 
pamphleteer, that the American officers were men of lowly 
birth, fishers and choppers and ploughmen. Yet that at 
which the loyalist and the Tory sneered was one of the 
great signs of the time, a portent of the democratic move- 
ment, a new source of strength in war and peace. The 
custom of the world then was to give military power and 
command by favor, to treat them as plunder to be shared 
among a limited class. Rank, birth, political service, the 
bar sinister, if it crossed a coat of arms sufficiently illus- 
trious, were the best titles to high military command. 
England, forgetting whence she had taken Clive and 
Wolfe, had relapsed into the current system of favoritism, 
and sent out Howes and Clintons and Burgoynes to com- 
mand her armies in America. Many men of this class 
were physically brave — now and then one, like Cornwallis 
or Rawdon, was efficient— but as a rule they lacked ability, 
were self-indulgent, and sometimes cruel. They repre- 
sented an old system now rotten and broken, and against 
them came a new svstem with the blood of youth in its 
veins, for the democratic movement was to draw most 
of its leaders from the people, whence its real strength 
came. Twenty years later, that which was a little-under- 
stood fact in the American war, had been formulated into 
an aphorism in the mighty revolution sweeping over Eu- 
rope, and men learned that the new order of things meant 
la carricre ouverte aux talcns, and that every private sol- 



4QO THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

dier had perchance a marshal's baton hidden in his knap- 
sack. 

Of this class, so pre-eminently children of their time 
and of the great social forces then stirring into life, Daniel 
Morgan was a most typical example. Born in New Jer- 
sey,* the son of a poor Welsh emigrant, he began life as a 
day-laborer. Drifting out to the frontier he became a 
wagoner, then a soldier in the Braddock expedition, was 
brutally flogged under the savage military code of the time 
for striking a companion, kept on in spite of this hideous 
wrong, and so distinguished himself in battle that he was 
promoted from the ranks and given a commission. Des- 
perately wounded, he escaped from the Indians in one hot 
skirmish, by clinging blindly to the neck of his frightened 
runaway horse. Thus he lived on the frontier — reckless, 
righting, drinking, gaming — saved only from destruction 
by his gigantic strength and hard head. A fortunate mar- 
riage turned him from his wild life and brought his really 
fine and gentle nature uppermost. He settled down in 
Virginia, and although he fought in Pontiac's and Lord 
Dunmore's wars, he became a steady, hardworking planter. 
When the Revolution came only one side was possible to 
such a man — he was the friend of Washington, the way 
was open to ability, and his time had come. With his 
riflemen raised in Virginia he had distinguished himself in 
almost every action from Boston to Monmouth, and had 
been taken prisoner in the desperate night assault at Que- 
bec. He had been especially conspicuous in the Burgoyne 
campaign, playing a very large part in all the fighting which 

* Morgan's birthplace is disputed. A strong claim has been made that he was 
bom in l!uck> County, Pa. The statement in the text is that generally accepted, and 
has tin- support <>f Grahame, Morgan's biographer. 



KING'S MOUNTAIN AND THE COWPENS 401 

culminated in the surrender of Saratoga, where the British 
commander told him that he commanded " the finest regi- 
ment in the world." Congress did not, however, seem im- 
pressed in the same way. In the promotions so lavishly 
given to foreigners and favorites, Morgan was passed over, 
and at last withdrew in disgust to his home in Virginia. But 
when he heard of the defeat at Camden he at once said 
that this was no time for personal feelings or resentments, 
and went directly to Hillsborough to join the defeated 
Gates. Then, at last, Congress gave him his tardy promo- 
tion to the rank of Brigadier-General, and when Greene 
arrived he found Morgan already at work. With excellent 
judgment Greene confirmed Morgan in his separate com- 
mand, and the latter, threatening Cornwallis's flank, crossed 
the Catawba and, picking up some small additional bodies 
of militia, moved along the Pacolet River, where he cut 
off and defeated with heavy loss a large body of loyalists 
who were ravaging that country. His operations and his 
position alike threatened the British seriously, and Corn- 
wallis could not advance into North Carolina or against 
Greene until he had disposed of Morgan's division. He 
therefore detached Tarleton with the light infantry and 
some cavalry — eleven hundred men in all — to follow 7 Mor- 
gan, while he moved in such a way himself as to cut Mor- 
gan off if he attempted to retreat to North Carolina. 

Tarleton moved rapidly, and Morgan fell back before 
him, until, on January 1 6th, he reached the Cowpens, where 
cattle were rounded up and branded, a place about midway 
between Spartanburg and the Cherokee ford of the Broad 
River. Morgan, brought up in the school of Washington, 
and having a perfect understanding of the situation in the 
South, wished just then, as much as Greene, to avoid a 



402 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

decisive action. At the same time, as he wrote his chief, 
this course might not be always possible, and he knew that 
he was in a position at once difficult and dangerous. Well 
informed by his scouts, he was aware that he was between 
two armies, and when he reached the Cowpens he deter- 
mined to stand his ground and fight, although some of his 
officers recommended otherwise. In the evening he walked 
about among the camp-fires talking to the militia, who 
were of the same class from which he himself had sprung. 
He told them that he was going to fight, took them into 
his confidence, assured them that il the old wagoner would 
crack his whip over Tarleton," and that if they gave three 
fires they would surely win. The next morning he had his 
men roused early, so that they could breakfast well, and 
then he formed them for battle. His main line was com- 
posed of the Maryland Continental troops in the centre, 
with the Virginia riflemen on each flank. In front he 
placed the militia under Pickens, and in the rear, out of 
sight, Colonel Washington and the cavalry. Then Mor- 
gan rode up and down the line, and told the militia to give 
the enemy two killing fires and fall back. He explained 
to the Continentals that the militia would retire after de- 
livering these volleys, that they must stand firm in the cen- 
tre, and, placed as they were on rising ground, fire low. 

As soon as Tarleton came in sight of the American 
army thus posted and drawn up, he raced at them, hardly 
waiting to form his line or to allow his reserve to come 
up. It was Tarleton's way, and had proved very pleasant 
and successful on several occasions in dealing with raw 
militia. But here he was face to face with an experienced 
soldier, and with an army resting o-i a body of tried vet- 
erans in the centre. As he advanced, the militia, under 










THE COMBAT BETWEEN COLONELS WASHINGTON AND TARLETON AT THE 
TATTLE OF THE COWTENs. 



KING'S MOUNTAIN AND THE COWPENS 405 

Pickens, delivered two or three well-aimed and destructive 
volleys, and then gave ground and fell back, as they had 
been told, but without disorder, round the wings of How- 
ard and the Mary landers, who held the centre. The main 
line in turn poured in such a heavy and well-sustained fire 
that the British hesitated, and Tarleton, calling for his re- 
serves, flung himself upon Howard's men. Howard, see- 
ing that his flank was being turned, ordered the right com- 
pany to face about. The order was misunderstood, and 
the whole line faced about and began to retreat. This 
blunder was turned into the stroke of victory by Morgan's 
quickness. Pickens and his militia had reformed, and were 
assailing the British right wing, while Colonel Washington, 
charging suddenly and breaking the right wing, gut to the 
rear of the enemy, and saw them rushing forward pell-mell 
after Howard's retreating line. "They are coming on like 
a mob," he sent word to Morgan. "Give them a fire and 
I will charge them." Suddenly, at the command, the steady 
Continental troops halted, faced about, poured in a heavy 
and deadly fire, and followed it with a bayonet charge upon 
the disordered British line. At the same moment Wash- 
ington dashed in upon them in the rear. All was now 
over in a few minutes. The rout was utter and complete, 
and the British infantry, outflanked and surrounded, threw 
away their arms and began to cry for the quarter which 
they had refused to Buford's men, but which was here ac- 
corded to them. Six hundred of Tarleton's eleven hun- 
dred were captured. Ten officers and over a hundred men 
were killed, showing the gallantry with which they fought 
until taken between two fires, while Tarleton himself, by 
personal prowess and hard riding, barely escaped. All the 
cannon, arms, equipage, everything fell into the hands of 



406 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

the Americans, who on their side lost only twelve killed 
and sixty wounded. 

The numbers engaged at the Cowpenswere small, only 
eight hundred Americans and about eleven hundred British, 
but it was one of the best-fought actions of the war. Mor- 
gan, no doubt, took a serious risk in fighting with the 
Broad River in his rear and with no protection to his flanks, 
but he knew his men, he did not intend that they should 
have any temptation to retreat, and he had confidence in 
them and in himself. Tarleton, no doubt, was rash in the 
extreme and blundered in his hasty advance, but he was 
one of the best of the British officers, and his error arose, 
as the British errors usually did, from contempt for his op- 
ponent. Yet, after all allowances for Tarleton's mistakes, 
the fact remains that Morgan's tactics were admirable, and 
he handled his men, who behaved with the utmost steadi- 
ness, so perfectly that he turned a blunder in an important 
order into a decisive opportunity for immediate victory. 
How well he fought his battle is best shown by the fact 
that he not only defeated his enemy, but utterly destroyed 
him. Moreover, his coolness and judgment, so excellent 
before the fight and in the heat of action, were not affected 
by his victory. He crossed the Broad River that very 
night, and when Cornwallis, stung by the defeat of Tarle- 
ton, rushed after Morgan, actually burning his baggage 
that he might move the faster, he reached the Little Ca- 
tawba only to learn that the victorious Americans had 
crossed with their prisoners two days before and were on 
the way to join Greene's army. 

The victory at the Cowpens was a fit supplement to 
that at King's Mountain. In the latter fight the back- 
woodsmen had sprung out of their hills in defence of their 







M 









408 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

homes and swept away the strong corps to which Corn- 
wallis trusted for scouts, outpost work, and the conquest 
of the interior. In the former a regular army, com- 
manded by one of Washington's Generals, had utterly 
defeated a select body of British troops, and crushed 
out of existence the light infantry which Cornwallis had 
used so effectively, and which he was to need so much in 
the future. There was much hard fighting still to do, but 
the days of panic and submission were over. The question 
had ceased to be how much the British would overrun and 
conquer, and had become the very different one of how 
long they could hold their ground, and how soon the Amer- 
icans, represented at last by a regular army and an able 
General, could drive them out. The first chapter in the 
British invasion of the South, England's last and most 
effective attempt to conquer her colonies, closed at Charles- 
ton with the loss of Lincoln's army and the utter prostra- 
tion of the American cause in that region. The second 
chapter began with Camden and ended with King's Moun- 
tain and the Cowpens. After Morgan's victory a new 
campaign opened in the South. 



CHAPTER XVII 

GREENE'S CAMPAIGN IN THE SOUTH 

TO tell within moderate limits the story of Greene's 
campaign in the South is not easy. The subject 
is one which deserves to be studied in the mi- 
nutest details, and success was achieved not by a single 
brilliant stroke, but through a long series of movements 
made under trying difficulties, and with many checks, 
finally culminating in the complete result which had been 
striven for so long and so patiently. It was a campaign 
which began with the formation of an army from very raw 
material, and under almost impossible conditions. It in- 
cluded three pitched battles, many lesser actions, dexter- 
ous retreats, masterly manoeuvres, and the solution of the 
immediate problem without ever failing in the long look 
ahead to the ultimate purpose, or in the grasp of the many 
phases of a conflict which was carried on not only by the 
main army, but by detached forces over a wide extent 
of country. That Greene proved himself fully equal to 
this difficult task, from which he at last emerged victori- 
ous, demonstrates his high ability, both as a soldier and 
administrator, and gives him a place in the purely military 
history of the Revolution second only to that of Wash- 
ington. No correct judgment, either of the man or of his 

achievement, can be formed from any single incident, or 

409 



4io THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

even from the most important battles of his campaign. 
What he was and what he did can be appreciated only by 
a survey which comprehends all his labors. Thus alone 
can we see how ably, patiently, and brilliantly he worked 
on steadily toward his great objective point, how he thrust 
himself between the divided British forces, and then leav- 
ing Cornwallis to go to his fate in Virginia, how he held 
grimly to his purpose, and unrelentingly pressed his 
enemy to the South, until he had driven the English 
armies from the States which at the outset they had over- 
run so easily. 

He was engaged in the most preliminary work of 
making his army, when the division under Morgan met 
Tarleton and won the striking victory of the Cowpens. It 
was an inspiriting and unlooked-for piece of good fortune 
to win such a fight, and win it so completely at the very 
start of the campaign, when neither Greene nor Morgan 
desired to run the risk of a decisive action. It was also 
a heavy blow to the enemy. But although Greene well 
knew the importance and meaning of what had been done, 
his head was not turned by the success, and he was well 
aware that he was as little able to fight Cornwallis with 
his own army as he had been before the rout of Tarleton. 

When the news of Morgan's victory reached the camp 
on the Pedee, nearly a week after the event, Greene's first 
feeling was one of great joy, and his second, one of deep 
anxiety, for his army was divided and the enemy were be- 
tween him and Morgan. The situation was full of dan- 
ger, and the fate of the campaign at that critical moment 
turned on the escape of the victors of the Cowpens. 
Sending expresses in all directions to call out the militia, 
even while the exultant shouts of his soldiers filled the air 



GREENE'S CAMPAIGN IN THE SOUTH 41 1 




outside his tent, making rapid arrangements to have the 
prisoners taken to the North, ordering boats to be pre- 
pared for the crossing of the 
Yadkin, and even of the Dan, 
he put his army under the 
command of Huger, with 
directions to meet him at 
Salisbury, and then started 
himself to join Morgan. He 
went alone, accompanied 
only by an orderly sergeant, 
and rode night and day for a 
hundred and fifty miles in 
bad weather and through a 
country infested by loyalists, 
for he knew that Morgan's 
army was the important 
point, and he counted no risk in the one fixed deter- 
mination to reach it. Morgan himself had shown equal 
wisdom. He had retreated as promptly and decisively 
as he had fought, and Cornwallis, on his arrival at Ram- 
sour's Mills, found that his active foe had already crossed 
the river and escaped. When Greene learned that Corn- 
wallis, in the eagerness of pursuit and the desire for re- 
venge, had burned his baggage, he saw at once that his 
■opponent had committed a capital mistake in not only 
missing his prey, but in crippling himself for an extended 
movement, and he exclaimed, when the news was brought 
to him, " Then he is ours." At that moment he hoped, if 
the waters of the Catawba did not fall, to check Corn- 
wallis in crossing and force him back to the Santee. Un- 
fortunately, after the manner of those rivers, the Catawba 



GENERAL DANIEL MORGAN. 

From the portrait by Charles Ir'illson Peale, /-pf. 



4i2 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

fell suddenly and Morgan was ordered to press on to the 
Yadkin, while Greene himself tried to collect the militia. 
Some eight hundred of them, under Davidson, attacked 
the enemy when they began to cross at McGowan's ford, 
and came very near inflicting a serious blow. But the 
British, breasting the stream with great gallantry, and not 
without serious losses, forced the passage, and, Davidson 
being killed, the militia rapidly dispersed. Only a third of 
them, indeed, remained together, and these were driven to 
rapid retreat the next morning by Tarleton. With the 
road thus cleared, Cornwallis hurried on to the Yadkin, 
where Greene's admirable foresight at once became ap- 
parent. The boats he had ordered were ready, and Mor- 
gan's whole army crossed easily and rapidly, his rear hav- 
ing a sharp skirmish with the British van, but getting 
safely over with only the loss of two or three wagons. 
The river was high and was running full and swift between 
the armies. Cornwallis had been energetic, but he had 
no boats. He was therefore helpless and could only 
soothe his feelings by a heavy cannonade, quite harmless 
to the Americans, who regarded him in safety from the 
opposite bank. 

Greene, who had changed the place of meeting from 
Salisbury to Guilford, as he had been compelled to do by 
events, reached the latter point with Morgan on February 
8th, and on the 9th the main army, under Huger, came 
up. Thus the first object had been attained. The Cow- 
pens had been won, the prisoners brought off, and the junc- 
tion effected so that Greene's army was no longer divided. 
This in itself was a feat, and a solid gain obtained in the 
face of great obstacles and through many dangers. But 
the great peril yet remained, for the united army was still 




Battles and Sieves thus "CAMDEN" 



THE FIELD OF GREENE'S OPERATIONS IN THE SOUTH. 



4 i4 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

in a most hazardous position, as Morgan's division had been 
before. Greene who, like all other able commanders, had 
carefully studied the character and habits of his adversary, 
hoped that Cornwallis's eagerness and zeal would lead him 
into a position where he could be attacked successfully. So 
when he heard that Cornwallis, baffled at the Yadkin, and 
informed that the Americans had no boats, had determined 
to cut them off at the fords of the Dan, he thought that there 
would be an opportunity to fight. But now there came upon 
him the ever-returning curse of short enlistments and of de- 
pendence on uncertain and unstable militia to shatter all his 
schemes and hopes. He could get no fresh recruits, could 
hardly indeed hold those he already had, and so found him- 
self with only a little over two thousand men with whom to 
face a superior British force. To retreat toward Virginia, 
where Arnold was now ravaging and plundering with a 
strong body of troops, was dangerous in a military sense, 
and most undesirable in every other way because of its effect 
upon public opinion and the spirit of the people on which 
so much turned. But Greene did not hesitate. He had 
said that the one thing for which Cornwallis ought to make 
every sacrifice was the destruction of the American army, 
and his single determination was that his army should not 
be destroyed, for it carried in its hands the fate of the war 
in the South. To this one object everything else must 
yield. He not only did not throw himself upon the Brit- 
ish, after the fashion of Gates, but he prepared for his re- 
treat as carefully and methodically as he would have done 
for a battle. To Sumter, recovered from his wound, went 
word to call out the militia of South Carolina; to Marion 
to cross the Santee ; to Pickens to follow up the rear of 
the enemy. The heavy baggage was sent to a place of 



GREENE'S CAMPAIGN IN THE SOUTH 415 

safety, urgent letters were dispatched to the Governors of 
North and South Carolina, and then Greene, on February 
10th, started for the fords of the Dan, with the British 
close on his heels. He had only seventy miles to go, but 
the roads were deep in mud, well nigh impassable. His 
means of transportation were bad, his men wretchedly 
clothed, and in a large measure barefooted. Quick march- 
ing was impossible, and the enemy, well equipped and pro- 
vided, were in hot haste after him. He had in his favor 
good officers, his own clear brains and indomitable courage, 
and the confidence and love of his men. " How you must 
suffer from cold," said Greene to the barefooted sentry. 
" I do not complain," came the answer. " I know I should 
fare well if our General could procure supplies ; and if, as 
they say, we fight in a few clays, I shall take care to secure 
some shoes." This little story brings out general and 
army in a clear light, and we see the sympathy and the 
knowledge of the one, and the faith and courage of the 
other — qualities by which victories in war are often wrung 
from adversity. 

To delay the enemy, Greene detached seven hundred 
of his best men, cavalry and infantry, under Colonel Will- 
iams. They were to mislead, to retard, but to avoid all 
serious action. Well did they do their work. For three 
days the two armies pressed on, one in hot chase of the 
other. The main American army struggled forward 
through mud and water, marking their road, as Greene 
wrote to Washington, with blood-stained tracks. On the 
third day most of the North Carolina militia deserted, but 
the regulars and the rest of the militia moved steadily for- 
ward, suffering in grim silence. Meantime the flower of 
the army under Williams hung on the flank of Cornwallis, 



416 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

embarrassing him at every stream and every defile, and 
leading him off on the road to the wrong ford. It was 
hard to keep the men in hand, and to avoid a serious fight, 
especially on the third day when Harry Lee's cavalry had 
a sharp brush with Tarleton's men in which the English 
lost eighteen men and the Americans two. The days of 
the easy slaughtering of the militia were drawing to a 
close, and Tarleton had been given a lesson, which it was 
a sore temptation to his teachers to continue. But Will- 
iams, with great self-control, drew off his men, and despite 
all his efforts, Cornwallis at last discovered that he was 
being misled, and turned back once more into the right 
road. When night fell, Williams and his men, with inde- 
scribable alarm, saw lights ahead, and breathed freely only 
when they found that it was Greene's deserted camp of the 
day before. Cornwallis, after a brief halt, started again at 
midnight, and pressed on through forest and over streams, 
Williams still hanging stubbornly on his flank. In the 
morning came a messenger from Greene that the wagons 
were over, and that the troops were crossing, whereupon all 
Williams's men broke into a loud cheer, heard with much 
misgiving in the British camp, where they had felt sure of 
their prey. Still Cornwallis pressed forward faster than 
ever, and in the late afternoon came another message to 
Williams that all the American army was over, the men 
posted and waiting for the gallant light troops who had 
made their escape possible. Thereupon Williams at once 
stopped his attacks, spurred forward at full speed, and he 
and all his men rapidly crossed, while Cornwallis came up 
close behind only to look at the deep and rapid river which 
flowed between him and his foe. It appeared after all that 
the Americans had boats, and, more than this, that Greene 



GREENE'S CAMPAIGN IN THE SOUTH 417 

had sent Kosciusko ahead to the ford to prepare earth- 
works on the other side. Evidently this general was very 
different from the easy victim of Camden. It was clear 
that he knew just what he meant to do and was neither to 
be caught nor fought with at pleasure. Hence much nat- 
ural perplexity to his opponent. Crossing the river was 
out of the question. The attempt would have been mad- 
ness, and could have resulted only in disaster, so Cornwal- 
lis, feeling now the loss of his baggage, sullenly withdrew 
to Hillsborough. He gave out that he had driven the 
Americans beyond the Dan, which was true, but he omitted 
to state that he had utterly failed to reach them or to bring 
on an action. By this masterly retreat, with every contin- 
gency accurately and punctually provided for, Greene had 
won his first victory, for not only had he baffled his enemy 
and defeated his purpose, but he had his own army in ex- 
istence and in the field, cheered and inspirited by their suc- 
cess. He also had the country around Cornwallis and to 
the southward flaming out again into armed resistance, and 
even while the loyalists were crowding into Hillsborough 
to rejoice in the presence of the royal army, news came 
that the American army was again south of the Dan. 
Suddenly, as the tidings spread, the eager crowd faded 
away, loyaltv cooled, recruits ceased to appear, and Corn- 
wallis wrote, " I am amongst timid friends and adjoining 
to inveterate rebels." The results of the retreat over the 
Dan were beginning to appear at once, for a victory is 
sometimes won in other ways than on the field of battle. 

Greene, when he began to retrace his steps, sent Lee 
and Pickens forward and followed himself with the main 
army, for he was determined that there should be no loyal- 
ist rising and no reinforcements for the British if he could 



4i8 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

help it. His detachments under Williams, Lee, and Pickens 
hung about the British army and swooped down -on com- 
munications and on loyalist recruits with a sudden and un- 
sparing hand. Pursuing Tarleton, who was out on one of 
his plundering expeditions, Lee came upon three hundred 
loyalists marching to join Cornwallis. He did not want to 
lose his blow at Tarleton, who, only a few miles ahead, was 
quite unconscious of his presence, and so trusting to the re- 
semblance in uniform, he tried to slip by the Tory companies. 
He very nearly succeeded, and was fairly in the midst of 
them when one of the loyalist riflemen detected the trick 
and fired. There was no help for it ; Tarleton must be 
abandoned. Out came the sabres, and in a few moments 
ninety of the loyalist militiamen were lying on the field ; 
their commander was desperately wounded, and the rest 
of the men were racing away for safety in all directions. 
The destruction of this large body of loyal recruits made 
enlisting under the crown so unpleasant and unpopular 
that it ceased in that neighborhood entirely, for there was 
clearly no use in trying to serve a king who could not 
give better protection than this to his volunteers. 

This little affair illustrated the situation of Cornwallis. 
He could not get reinforcements, his communications 
were cut, and to reach supplies and ammunition he would 
have to go to Wilmington and leave Greene behind. 
Thus it became absolutely necessary to him to light a 
battle. But Greene, disappointed by perverse, well-mean- 
ing and ill-acting legislatures, could not get the additional 
men he so sorely needed, although clamorous messages 
went speeding forth for them in all directions. He, too, 
wanted a battle, for he felt that even if he could not win, 
he could at least cripple the English by a hard fight and 



GREENE'S CAMPAIGN IN THE SOUTH 419 

still bring his army off in good order after a defeat. But 
fight he would not until he had enough men to give him 
at least a fair chance. So he took up a position between 
the two streams which fed the Haw River, and then 
marched about, shifting his camp every night, keeping 
Cornwallis constantly on the move, and never allowing 
him to come near enough for anything more than a sharp 
skirmish. At last the baffled Cornwallis gave over the 
pursuit and went into camp at Bell's Mills to rest his men, 
who were beginning to get weary and to desert. 

This gave Greene likewise opportunity to rest and re- 
cruit his own forces. By the individual exertions of lead- 
ers like Stevens and Lawson of Virginia, and Eaton and 
Butler of North Carolina, militia had finally been raised, 
and, in the time given by skilful delays, had been gradually 
joining the American army. Thus strengthened and rest- 
ed, Greene determined to accept battle, and, on March 14, 
1 781, he marched to Guilford Court House and took up a 
position on ground which he had already carefully exam- 
ined with a view to fighting there. He had now with him 
forty-two hundred foot, and not quite two hundred cavalry. 
Of these less than fifteen hundred were regulars. The rest 
were militia, and Greene was only too well aware that he 
could place but little dependence upon them against the 
onset of regulars and veterans. Still he believed that 
perchance he might win, that at the worst he could 
only lose the field and have his militia dispersed, and 
that he was reasonably certain to so damage the enemy 
that they would be compelled to retreat to Wilming- 
ton. On the fifteenth, therefore, he selected his ground 
and placed his troops with great care. In the first line 
he put the North Carolina militia ; in the second, the 



420 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

Virginians, also militia, but men who had been under 
fire, and among whom were many old Continentals ; in 
the third line were the regulars from Maryland and Vir- 
ginia, but only one regiment, the First Maryland, was 
eomposed of veterans. On the right Hank were posted 
Washington and his dragoons and part of the light in- 
fantry, and on the left Lee and his light cavalry and the 
rest of the light infantry, backed by Campbell with some 
of his King's Mountain riflemen, all veterans and the pick 
of the army. 

Lee, thrown forward on the skirmish line, drove in 
Tarleton, and then fell back before the main column of 
the enemy. The British van came in view about one 
o'clock and Cornwallis opened a sharp cannonade, and 
then forming his men advanced rapidly. Greene had ad- 
dressed the North Carolina militia and besought them to 
give two volleys and then retire; but when they saw the 
British coming on at a charge, although they apparently 
fired a first and probably a second vollev,*"' they then broke 
in wild panic, and, despite all the officers could do, fled in 
all directions without inflicting the slightest further damage 
upon the enemy. Now appeared the wisdom of Greene's 
dispositions. As the British rushed forward, cheering, 
Washington and Lee fell on their flanks, checked them, 
and gave the Virginians time to pour in a steady and well- 
directed fire. The British line was shaken, and men began 
to drop fast, but the well-disciplined regulars still kept 
on, while the Virginians gave way on the right, retreating 
slowly and without panic. The British, now somewhat 

'•■ The generally received account is that the North Carolina militia ran without 
firing a shot, but I think that Judge Schenck, in his historj ol North Carolina, fairly 
proves that they were only ordered to fire two volleys, and that they certainly did some 
effective firing before they broke and fled. 







* *5 

En 5 



£ & 



fcj 



k; § 



GREENE'S CAMPAIGN IN THE SOUTH 423 

broken, pushed through on the right and came on the vet- 
eran Maryland regiment, which opened a close and destruc- 
tive fire, and then, charging, drove the British back in con- 
fusion. Had Greene dared to throw in his other Conti- 
nentals at this point he might have won, but this he would 
not do; for he lacked confidence in the new regiments, 
and did not intend to risk, in the slightest degree or under 
any temptation, the loss of his army, which would have 
followed the dispersion of his regular troops. His fore- 
sight was justified, for the Virginian left, having fallen 
back at last, the British columns again united and before 
their attack the Second Maryland broke and ran. The 
first regiment again charged on the advancing British, and 
at the same moment Washington and his dragoons once 
more fell upon their flank. Again the British gave way, 
this time in utter disorder; and Cornwallis, whose horse 
had been shot under him, seeing the flight of his army, or- 
dered the artillery to open. His officers remonstrated, de- 
claring that he would destroy his own men, but Cornwallis 
persisted, and the artillery firing through their own ranks 
checked the American pursuit, thus giving the British time 
to re-form their broken lines. 

Greene, like Cornwallis, well at the front and taking 
in the whole field, but ignorant as to Lee's whereabouts 
and fearing that his flanks would be turned, decided at 
once to take no further risks. He was confident that the 
enemy had been badly crippled, and being determined not 
to allow his regulars to suffer further, ordered a retreat. 
The British attempted to pursue, but were easily repulsed, 
and Greene, in good order, moved off his whole army, 
leaving only some guns, the horses of which had been killed. 
He proceeded as far as Reedy Fork, three miles distant, 



424 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

waited there quietly for some hours to gather the strag- 
glers, and then marched on and occupied his old camp on 
Troublesome Creek. 

The battle had been stubbornly fought, and the British 
had suffered severely. Cornwallis had lost, by his own re- 
port, 406 killed and wounded and 26 missing, while Greene's 
information was that the enemy had lost 633, exclusive of 
officers, among whom the casualties had been exceptionally 
severe, many of the most conspicuous having been killed 
or wounded. Over a thousand of the Americans were 
missing. In other words, the militia had gone home, as 
Greene said, " to kiss their sweethearts and wives." Five 
hundred and fifty-two of the North Carolina militia, who 
had only lost nine men in battle, and 294 of the Virginians, 
who had fought well, had departed in this quiet and un- 
obtrusive way. But these men could be recovered, and 
the American loss in killed and wounded was only 163, less 
than half of that which they had inflicted on the enemy. 
Greene, moreover, after the fight was over, had his army 
in high spirits and good condition, ready for further work. 
Cornwallis, for his part, issued a proclamation announcing 
a triumph, and when his glowing dispatch reached England, 
Charles Fox said that " another such victory would destroy 
the British army." Cornwallis, if judged by his actions 
and not by his words, took much the same view. Leaving 
his own and the American wounded on the field, he not 
only did not pursue his beaten foe, but began an immediate 
retreat from the scene of his loudly proclaimed victory. 
Greene, the defeated, started after him, and although hold- 
ing his short-term militia with great difficulty, the van- 
quished eagerly pursued the victor, and tried to catch him 
by the most hurried marches, while the conqueror just 



GREENE'S CAMPAIGN IN THE SOUTH 4^5 

managed to get over the Deep River before the Virginians, 
finally abandoning Greene, obliged him to desist from the 
chase. The victorious Cornwallis then went on to Wil- 
mington to refit, and the American General, having lost 
his battle and won his campaign, took the bold step which 
marks more than anything else his military capacity, and 
which finally resulted in his driving the British from the 
South. 

Up to this time Greene had been devoting all his efforts 
toward making his army, stopping any loyalist rising, and 
preventing the advance of Cornwallis to the North. In 
all these objects he had been entirely successful. Corn- 
wallis, with his army much broken, had been forced to 
retreat to tide water, thus abandoning the State of North 
Carolina, except where his army camped, and leaving all 
the rest of the State practically free. An important por- 
tion of the British forces in the Southern department, the 
second division, in fact, under the command of Lord 
Rawdon, were stationed in South Carolina, and held that 
State and Georgia firmly, by their presence and by their 
possession of a chain of fortified posts. With the British 
forces in this position, two courses were open to Greene at 
this juncture. One was to follow the line he had hitherto 
pursued ; hover on Cornwallis's flank, cut his communica- 
tion, isolate him, prevent his advance to the North, and 
fight him again as soon as he could sufficiently recruit his 
army. This was the safe and obvious plan in conformity 
with the original purpose for which Greene and his army 
were intended, and it would have been difficult to have 
criticised him if he had adopted it. The alternative 
course was bold and hazardous, but pregnant with the pos- 
sibility of much greater and more decisive results. This 



426 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

second plan was to give over all thought of checking 
Cornwallis's northern movement and by marching boldly 
to the southward, thrust himself between the main army 
and the Southern division, and then attack the latter and 
their posts. From this course of action, as Greene wrote, 
one of two results must come. North Carolina was free, 
was too difficult a country, and too sparsely settled, to in- 
vite further attack from the British, who had been forced 
down to the coast. Cornwall is therefore, either would 
have to march on to the North, leaving Greene free 
to break up the British posts and drive the enemy from 
South Carolina and Georgia, or he w T ould be compelled 
to follow Greene, in which case the British campaign 
would have failed, and the war be narrowed to the 
two southernmost States, with the North to draw upon 
for men and supplies. It was true that Virginia was in 
Greene's department, and that by marching South, he 
would leave it open to the enemy, but Virginia was the 
most populous and one of the strongest of the States, 
with no loyalist element, as in the Carolinas, and able to 
make, unaided, a formidable defence. Moreover, every 
step that Cornwallis took to the North brought him 
nearer to the principal American army under Washington, 
now reinforced by the French troops. 

Greene, having decided on his new movement and upon 
this daring change in the plan of campaign, acted quickly, 
so quickly indeed that he was out of Cornwallis's reach 
before the British knew what he was intending to do. 
April 2d he bade farewell to his home-loving militia, and 
on the 6th, after detaching Lee to join Marion and assail 
Lord Rawdon's communications with Charleston, he be- 
gan his movement to the South. His objective point was 



GREENE'S CAMPAIGN IN THE SOUTH 42; 

Camden, and thither he directed his march, halting that 
night and making his camp at Hobkirk's Hill, less than 
two miles from the enemy's works. His antagonist, Lord 
Rawdon, was a bold and enterprising officer. Hearing of 
the near approach of Greene, and learning from a deserter 
that Sumter had not come up, and that the artillery had 
not arrived, he determined to surprise the Americans. He 
therefore marched out early on the morning of April 7th 
with this end in view, but, unluckily for him, Greene 
was never in a condition to be surprised. He had his 
men encamped in order of battle, with a strong picket 
line, and it was this characteristic and sleepless watch- 
fulness which now saved him, for he had not anticipated 
an attack the very morning after he had crossed the bor- 
der. Lord Rawdon's prompt movement was unexpected, 
and would have been much more disastrous had it not 
been for Greene's arrangements. As it was, his excel- 
lent picket-line fell back slowly, skirmishing heavily and 
delaying the enemy's advance, which gave time to form 
the American army. The opposing forces were pretty 
nearly matched, Greene having about fourteen hundred 
men and Rawdon about a thousand, but the advantage in 
equipment, discipline, and experience was with the British. 
The attack was made with rapidity and vigor, the Brit- 
ish charging boldly up the low slopes of the hill. Greene 
watching keenly, saw that the enemy's front was narrow 
and gave orders to extend his lines, but Lord Rawdon 
was too quick and threw out his reserves before either 
Ford or Campbell could reach his flanks. In the centre 
the Marylanders, who had fought so admirably at Guil- 
ford, got into confusion in one company, and then badly 
handled by their commander, Colonel Gunby, began to 



428 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

retreat*just at the critical moment when they were actually 
piercing the enemy's line, and when Greene thought that 
victory was in his grasp. This sudden and unexpected 
misfortune compromised the whole position ; and Greene, 
with the self-control and quick decision which saved his 
campaign on so many occasions, determined to take no 
further risk and withdrew his men in good order. There 
was a sharp fight over the artillery, but Washington, who 
had been delayed and entangled in the woods, coming up 
with his dragoons, charged vigorously, and the Americans 
brought off all the guns. The American loss in killed, 
wounded, and missing appears to have been two hundred 
and seventy-one, the British two hundred and fifty-eight, 
but the proportion of killed and wounded was heavier 
with the latter than with the former. 

Saved by his unresting vigilance from a surprise, but 
defeated in battle by the utterly unexpected blundering of 
an experienced officer, Greene was sorely depressed by the 
result at Hobkirk's Hill. Yet he made no sign. With 
the same dogged persistence as when he outmarched Corn- 
wallis he withdrew to Rugely Mills, and despite the usual 
heart-breaking disappointments in getting reinforcements, 
he reposed and recruited his army, and then moved out 
again and once more threatened Camden. 

Lee and Marion, who had been sent forward when 
Greene quitted North Carolina, had failed to intercept 
Watson, who joined the mam army on May 7th. Thus 
reinforced, Rawdon left Camden and started again after 
Greene, intending to pass him on the flank and attack him 
in the rear. Hut although Rawdon was enterprising and 
quick, he was no match for Greene when it came to man- 
oeuvring. Greene moved off in such a manner as to de- 



GREENE'S CAMPAIGN IN THE SOUTH 431 

feat Rawdon's plan, and then took up a strong position 
which the British looked at and feared to attack. Unable 
to bring Greene to action, except on ground of his own 
choosing, Rawdon's position became untenable ; for while 
Greene threatened him on the flank, Lee and Marion were 
menacing his communications and his fortified posts, 
especially Fort Motte. Thus forced by his opponent's 
movements, Rawdon, on May 10th, evacuated Camden, 
leaving his wounded behind him, and withdrew to Monks 
Corner, only thirty miles from Charleston. Like Corn- 
wallis, he had been compelled to retreat to the seaboard 
and leave the interior of the State free to the operations of 
the American army. Again Greene, by his strategy and 
by the manner in which he manoeuvred his army and dis- 
posed his outlying detachments, had forced the British to 
retreat. Again he had lost a battle and won a campaign. 

Now began to appear the results of the bold move- 
ment to the South in more substantial form than the re- 
treat of the English army to the seaboard. " We fight, 
get beat, rise, and fight again," wrote Greene to the French 
minister, and now the " fighting again " had fairly begun. 
Lee and Marion had failed to stop Watson on his way to 
Lord Rawdon, but they besieged the fort which bore the 
former's name, and took it on April 27th. May 10th 
Camden was evacuated, and Greene marched in and lev- 
elled the works. After this, events moved fast, the second 
part of Greene's campaign, involving the destruction of 
the British posts, having now fairly opened. Very pre- 
cious among these posts was Fort Motte, and one motive 
of Lord Rawdon's hasty retreat was to save this particular 
place. On May 12th, so quickly did he move, his camp- 
fires were seen by the Americans on the opposite side of 



432 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

the Congaree. But with all his effort, he was too late, 
arriving" only in time to see the Americans set fire to the 
Motte house, in the centre of the stockade, with burning 
arrows, provided by Mrs. Motte herself, and thereupon the 
surrender of the post and the garrison. The day before 
the fall of Fort Motte, Sumter had taken Orangeburg; 
on the 14th, Neilson's Ferry was evacuated, and on the 
15th, after a sharp attack, Lee took Fort Gran by and cap- 
tured the garrison. In less than a month from the day 
when he reached Camden, Greene had occupied that town, 
forced back the main British army to the coast, and by his 
well-led and well-directed detachments, had taken four 
posts and compelled the abandonment of two more. The 
British grip on the Carolinas was being rudely broken, 
and the States which they had believed firmly within their 
power, were slipping rapidly away from them. North 
Carolina was free, and South Carolina nearly cleared of 
the enemy. Georgia, the first to fall into the hands of 
the British, the most strongly held and remote enough 
from the camp on the Pedee, where Greene withdrew at 
the beginning to rest and gather his army, and whence he 
set forth upon his campaign, still remained in the con- 
trol of the enemy. To Georgia, therefore, Lee directed 
his march after the fall of Fort Granby, and capturing 
a small post on his way, joined Picken? in the siege 
of Augusta on May 21st. The town was well defended 
by two strong works, Fort Cornwallis and Fort Grierson. 
While Pickens attacked the former, Lee besieged the lat- 
ter. Driven from Fort Grierson, the garrison undertook 
to withdraw to Fcrt Cornwallis, and were nearly all killed 
or captured in the attempt. The whole American force 
then concentrated their attack on the remaining fort, which 



GREENE'S CAMPAIGN IN THE SOUTH 433 

was the larger and more formidable of the two. There 
was a strong garrison within its walls, consisting in part of 
some of England's Indian auxiliaries, and both the red 
and white soldiers of the Crown fought gallantly and well. 
They made several fierce sallies and met the besiegers ob- 
stinately at every point. But the Americans, with equal 
obstinacy, drew their lines closer and closer. They mounted 
their one gun on a log tower devised at Fort Watson by 
Lieutenant-Colonel Mayham, and by this bit of American 
invention were able to use their extremely limited artillery 
with great effect. At the same time the riflemen covered 
every point of the fort, and picked off the garrison with 
unerring aim. Steadily the Americans pushed nearer, 
until at last all was ready for an assault upon the now 
broken works. Then, at last, the garrison, which had 
suffered severely, surrendered after their long and stubborn 
defence, and Augusta and all its brave defenders passed 
into the hands of the Americans. 

Meantime Greene had directed his own course with the 
main army against Ninety-six, about twenty-five miles from 
Augusta, and the strongest British post in the South. It 
was now held by Colonel Cruger with five hundred men, and 
was a well-fortified place of great strength. Greene made 
the mistake of opening his trenches too close to the fort, 
within seventy yards, and was forced to withdraw and begin 
again at a distance of four hundred yards. Time was thus 
lost, but although Greene, weakened by his detachments, 
which had been so well employed and by the customary 
failure of the militia to come in when expected, had only 
a thousand men, the besiegers' lines were pushed vigorously 
and rapidly. June 8th, Lee arrived from Augusta, and 
was assigned to the siege of the outlying stockade, which 



434 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

protected the water-supply of the besieged, and the evacu- 
ation of which he forced on the i 7th. Cruger and his men 
were now helpless, their works were swept by the Ameri- 
can fire, and in two or three days the place must have sur- 
rendered unconditionally. But Lord Rawdon was deter- 
mined that so large a detachment as that in Ninety-six 
should not be sacrificed, and with his army refreshed and 
strengthened, he started from Charleston on June ;th, just 
when Lee was leaving Augusta. Greene heard of his 
coming, and knew by the iSth that Rawdon had eluded 
Sumter, who was not behaving well in a subordinate posi- 
tion, and was within two or three days' march of Ninety- 
six. The advancing British army, now drawing near so 
rapidly, outnumbered the Americans more than two to 
one, and it was plainly impossible to give them battle. 
Greene, therefore, impelled by the eager desire of his men, 
determined to try an assault, which was delivered with the 
utmost gallantry. Lee on the right was successful, but the 
main attack was repulsed after some very savage fighting, 
which cost the Americans one hundred and eighty-five 
men in killed and wounded. After this failure, there was 
no alternative left, and Greene, bitterly disappointed, raised 
the siege and withdrew. The British army marched into 
Ninety-six on June 21st, and then went after Greene, 
who, too weak to meet them in the field, easily eluded 
their pursuit and kept out of the way, until Lord Rawdon, 
his men being utterly exhausted, abandoned the chase. 
This done, Greene resorted to his usual tactics. Unable 
to meet his adversary in the open field he wrote " that he 
should endeavor to oblige the British to evacuate Ninety- 
six and to manoeuvre them down into the lower country." 
As he planned, so it fell out. Before his skilful move- 



GREENE'S CAMPAIGN IN THE SOUTH 435 

ments Rawdon once more found himself unable to either 
fight or hold his ground. Dividing his army he evacuated 
Ninety-six, and in two columns took his way to Charles- 
ton, carrying with him into exile the unhappy loyalists who 
dared not remain now that the British post was abandoned. 
The whole region, in fact, commanded by the strong de- 
tachment at Ninety-six, was once again in American con- 
trol, and the British, again forced from the interior, were 
pushed back to the seaboard where they could get support 
from their ships. 

After Rawdon had retreated, Greene withdrew his 
army to the hills of the Santee to rest and recruit during 
the extreme heat of the summer ; but the withdrawal 
of the main army did not stop the fighting. Lee, Mari- 
on, Sumter and the commanders of detachments under 
Greene's direction followed the retreating British troops 
and skirmished actively with the rear guards of Rawdon 
and Cruger. They swept down even to the picket lines 
at Charleston, destroyed ships in the Cooper River, in a 
series of small actions cut off and routed several outlying 
parties of the enemy, and made prisoners to the number 
of seven officers and a hundred and fifty men. Through- 
out the region from which the British had been driven, 
civil war of the most intense kind raged, the American 
loyalist fighting with the American patriot, brother with 
brother, and kinsman with kinsman. The fate of the 
loyalists was in truth pitiable. Those who had followed 
the English army to Charleston, suffered there from dis- 
ease, bad quarters, and bad food. Those who remained 
behind were left exposed to the attacks of their fellow- 
Americans whom they had helped to persecute in the 
brief days of British ascendancy. The British themselves, 



436 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

unable to protect their supporters, made matters worse 
by proclamations, confiscations of property within their 
reach, brutality to prisoners, and occasional hangings, 
which culminated in the execution of Colonel Hayne, a 
prisoner of war, after a mere mockery of a trial. The 
hanging of Hayne filled Greene with wrath and he threat- 
ened immediate reprisals, which put a stop to the execu- 
tions of any more American prisoners, but the people 
were not so temperate. They not only threatened re- 
prisals, but made them. Greene, at once strong and 
merciful, could not restrain the Americans beyond the 
lines of his camp, and the British made no effort to hold 
back their allies. On the one side were the patriots or 
Whigs, as they called themselves, returning to their 
homes, too often mere heaps of ashes ; embittered by 
a sense of many wrongs, exultant and confident, inflamed 
by the hangings at Charleston and thirsting for revenge. 
On the other side were the loyalists, deserted by the 
royal army, inspired by hatred of their antagonists, and 
utterly desperate. The result was that the State was filled 
with partisan fighting, with much burning and plunder- 
ing, and not a few bloody deeds. The English policy of 
encouraging a local civil war and of giving the people 
she sought to retain as subjects no choice but to fight 
against their country or go to ruin, prison, and death, 
bore bitter fruit in South Carolina and Georgia during 
that summer of 1781. 

While Greene, in the midst of all this wild fighting, 
was resting and drilling his army and slowly drawing in 
reinforcements to his weil-ordered camp among the cool 
hills of Santee, his late opponent, Lord Rawdon, in order 
to repair his broken health, took ship for England, only 



GREENE'S CAMPAIGN IN THE SOUTH 439 

to fall into the hands of the French. He was succeeded 
in the command at Charleston by Lieutenant-Colonel 
Stewart, who, in the latter part of August, moved out 
with about 2,300 men, and marched to the junction of the 
Congaree and Wataree, where he encamped. Informed 
as to the enemy's movements, Greene also moved out on 
August 2 2d, and, making a wide circuit, marched toward 
Stewart, whose communications were threatened by de- 
tachments sent forward by Greene, and who was forced to 
fall back to Eutaw Springs. On September 7th Greene 
was at Burdell's plantation, within easy striking distance, 
and here he was joined by Marion, who had just routed 
a party of three hundred Hessians and British, inflicting 
a loss of over a hundred, and breaking them completely. 
Good news this to come to the army, for Greene had de- 
termined this time to attack, although he had no more 
men than his antagonist. Stewart, moreover, had posted 
his men in a very strong position, and was so confident 
that, had it not been for two deserters, he would have 
been surprised. As it was, he had just time to make his 
arrangements the next morning, before the Americans 
were upon him. His cavalry, sent forward under Coffin, 
were cut to pieces, and the Americans, formed by Greene 
in two columns, came on rapidly and unflinchingly. This 
time the militia fought well. The North Carolinians fired 
seventeen rounds before they gave way, and, when they 
fell back, the Virginians and the men of Maryland rushed 
promptly into their places. Twice the steady British lines 
repelled the assault, but, as they became disordered by their 
success, Greene saw that the critical moment had come 
and put in his Continentals. With a fierce bayonet 
charge, the men in buff and blue broke through the Brit- 



44o THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

ish centre, while Lee flanked the enemy on the left. The 
rout seemed complete, the victors poured into the British 
camp, carrying all before them, and, then, forgetting the 
bonds of discipline, scattered in every direction to seek 
plunder and drink. It was a fatal error, and only Greene's 
coolness and the steadiness of his best troops prevented 
his victory from being turned into utter disaster. The 
retreating British had flung themselves into a brick house 
which stood in the centre of the camp, and poured from 
this vantage-ground a galling and deadly fire upon their 
assailants. Meantime the right wing of the British held 
their ground, and repulsed the American attack with a 
heavy slaughter. Lee also had got separated from the 
main line, and the Americans, scattered and dispersed, 
were suffering heavily in all directions. Greene saw that 
his position was fatally compromised. With great dif- 
ficulty and supreme exertion he re-formed his lines and 
got the army again in order of battle. But the complete 
victory which he had won by his first attack had slipped 
from him through the failure in discipline of his men 
when they believed that the field was theirs. His sol- 
diers were exhausted, and he decided, as he had so often, 
with stern self-control, decided before, that he must not 
hazard the existence of the army, no matter how glitter- 
ing the prize of a possible victory. Reluctantly he gave 
the word to retreat, and with nearly five hundred prison- 
ers he withdrew to the plantation he had left in the morn- 
ing, confident only that he had crippled his opponent and 
would force him to retreat to Charleston. It had been a 
hard-fought fight. The Americans had lost, in killed and 
wounded, four hundred and eight ; the British, four hun- 
dred and thirty-three, and at least as many more in prison- 



GREENE'S CAMPAIGN IN THE SOUTH 44r 

ers. Stewart, as Greene had anticipated, was obliged to 
retreat, and marched back to Charleston, leaving seventy 
of his wounded to the Americans. At Guilford and Hob- 
kirk's Hill, Greene had lost his battle and won his cam- 
paign. At Eutaw he had fought a drawn battle, but he had 
broken Stewart, as he did Cornwallis, and once more had 
won his campaign. The British had come out in the open, 
made a hard fight and been obliged to return to the sea- 
shore. They had failed once more to break the American 
army, they had failed to hold the country beyond the 
reach of tide-water and of their garrisoned town. This 
was defeat, for the loyalists could not sustain themselves 
alone, and, with the British shut up in Charleston, the 
States of the South were in control of the Americans, as 
New York and New Jersey were in the North. 

Marion and Lee followed Stewart's retreating army to 
Charleston, harassing his march and cutting off stragglers 
and detached bodies of troops, while Greene, his main 
purpose effected, withdrew again to the high hills to rest 
and gather reinforcements. Recruits were slow in com- 
ing in, and the enemy made a raid into North Carolina 
which revived partisan warfare in that State. But the 
movement was onlv sporadic. Yorktown fell, Virginia 
was cleared of the enemy, North Carolina was also free, 
and Wilmington was evacuated. The surrender of Corn- 
wallis enabled Washington to send Wayne, with the Penn- 
sylvanians, to the Southern army, and thus encouraged by 
the welcome tidings from the North, Greene took the 
field on November 18th and marched against the enemy. 
Leaving the main army to pursue Stewart, he went him- 
self with a small detachment of picked troops, drove back 
a strong but detached British division to Charleston, and 



44^ THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

thus forced Stewart to retreat to the city, where the great- 
est alarm prevailed. Having thus again confined the ene- 
my to Charleston, Greene encamped at the Round O, in a 
strong position, and held the British, who outnumbered 
him five to one, in check within the Charleston lines. 

St. Clair and Wayne arrived with the Pennsylvanians 
as the year was closing, and early in January, 1782, Greene 
detached the latter with five hundred men to operate in 
Georgia. Wayne was, as ever, bold and enterprising. He 
re-established the State government, and, although very in- 
ferior in numbers, he harassed the British and kept them 
cooped up in Savannah. In April he cut off a detach- 
ment of the enemy which had gone out to rouse the Ind- 
ians, and a little later he repelled a night attack made 
by the Indians themselves, their chief and the British 
guides all falling in the dark and murderous conflict. Too 
weak still to attack, Wayne circled about Savannah, keep- 
ing the garrison hemmed in, until, on July nth, the city 
was evacuated and Georgia passed finally into the hands of 
the Americans. 

The war was now practically over. There were a few 
skirmishes, in one of which John Laurens fell, young, gal- 
lant, leading a charge and giving his life uselessly when his 
country's victory was won. But these affairs had no real 
importance. Greene held the field and watched his foe, 
while the British remained clinging helplessly to Charles- 
ton, and, despite their superiority of numbers, unable to do 
anything against their vigilant enemy. Slowly another year 
rolled round, and, finally, on December 14th, the British 
evacuated Charleston, and Greene's soldiers marched in on 
the very heels of their departing foes and posted themselves 
at the State House. At three o'clock Greene himself, 



GREENE'S CAMPAIGN IN THE SOUTH 445 

escorted by Lee's famous cavalry, rode in with his officers 
and with the Governor of South Carolina, restored at last 
to his capital. Outside lay the English fleet, now spreading 
their sails and dropping down to the sea to carry the English 
army back across the Atlantic. As Greene passed along 
the streets the crowds welcomed him with cheers, cast 
wreaths from the windows, and cried to God to bless him. 
So it is well to leave him in the sunshine and the flowers, 
with the light of a great triumph radiant upon him. The 
patient, brave, enduring, often defeated, but never con- 
quered, man, the hard-fighting soldier, the keen strategist, 
had come to his reward at last. His work was done and 
well done. He passed out of the sunshine of victory to die 
all too early among the people for whom he had fought, 
leaving the memory of his deeds of war as his last memory, 
untouched by any of the trials and differences which the 
coming years of political strife brought to so many of his 
comrades in arms. 

No outline of Greene's campaign can do full justice to 
him and to his army. There is no great dramatic mo- 
ment when he arose at once triumphant to the complete 
victory at which he aimed. From the day when he took 
command of a beaten army at Charlotte to that other 
day, two years later, when he rode victorious into Charles- 
ton, he had been laboring incessantly with the single pur- 
pose of pressing the British back to the sea and setting 
free the Southern States. The forces under his command 
had fought four pitched battles. Morgan won at the Cow- 
pens, and Greene was defeated at Guilford and Hob- 
kirk's Hill, and had fought a drawn battle at Eutaw. 
Judged merely by this statement of his battles, one would 
call him an unsuccessful General, and yet he was steadily 



44" THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

victorious. By his detachments under the really brilliant 
leadership of Marion, Lee, and Sumter, of Williams and 
Washington and the rest, by his masterly retreats and 
equally masterly strategy, he held his army together with 
grim tenacity, and surely and steadily forced the British 
back before an advance not always apparent but as resist- 
less as the incoming tide, which seems never to gain and 
yet ever rises higher and higher. And always behind and 
hand in hand with the operations in the field went on con- 
tinually the grinding, harassing work of making and re- 
making his army, shifting perpetually under the wretched 
system of short enlistments. In the North, miserable as 
the arrangements were, the army was near Congress, they 
were supplied by contract, they were in the most settled 
parts of the country, and the loyalists there were generally 
few and weak. Greene fought through a country where 
a large part of the native population was in arms against 
him, and where it was often difficult to distinguish friend 
from foe. He had no contracts, but was obliged to rely 
on the changeable, well-meaning, but often weak and ill- 
informed, State governments. There was never a mo- 
ment when he was not short of men, money, ammunition, 
and supplies, and when he was not writing, supplicating, 
demanding all these things, and but rarely obtaining them. 
Under these conditions, aided by his singularly gallant and 
enterprising officers, and by the picked fighting men of the 
South, whom he gradually gathered round him, he came 
to a complete victory. Steadily he out-generalled, out- 
marched, and, in the long run, out-fought his opponents. 
Slowly and surely he narrowed the enemy's field of oper- 
tions and forced the English to the coast. Gradually the 
three States which the British had overrun so rapidly and 



GREENE'S CAMPAIGN IN THE SOUTH 447 

triumphantly passed from their control, and the loyalist 
support withered away before the advance of Greene's 
army and the sweeping raids of his lieutenants. So the 
end came with a victory as complete as the patient labor, 
the unresting energy, and the keen intelligence which 
made it possible. A fine piece of soldier's work, very 
nobly and ably done, and deserving of great praise and re- 
membrance from all those who call Greene and his army 
countrymen. Wayne, who watched by the death-bed of 
Greene, wrote when the end came, "He was great as a 
soldier, great as a citizen, immaculate as a friend. The 
honors — the greatest honors — of war are due his remains. 
Pardon this scrawl. My feelings are but too much affect- 
ed because I have seen a great and good man die." 

So, with the simple words of the comrade who fought 
by his side, we may leave the victor of the campaign 
which carried the American Revolution to triumph in 
the South. 



A 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE TEST OF ENDURANCE 

1779-1781 

S the year 1778 was closing, the scene of action was 
shifted from the North to the South. All eyes 
at the time were fixed on the events which be^an 
with the appearance of the British in Georgia, and, so far 
as this period of the war is concerned, the habit has con- 
tinued, in large measure, down to the present day. Thus 
it happens that these two years in the North, in the Con- 
gress and the camp, as well as over seas, are less well 
known, less rightly valued than any other part of the Rev- 
olutionary War. That this should be so was, at the time, 
wholly natural. The fall of Savannah, and its subsequent 
defence against the French and Americans, the capture of 
Charleston, the rapid success of the British arms, the defeat 
of Gates, the gradual development and hard fighting of 
Greene's great campaign, all drew the attention and filled 
the minds of men everywhere. Yet, important as these 
events were, the vital point still remained where Wash- 
ington and his army watched the Hudson and kept the 
enemy pinioned in New York. If that army had failed or 
dissolved, the English forces would have swept down from 
the North to meet their brethren in the South, and nothing 
then could have saved Greene ; for the one primary condi- 

4-P 



THE TEST OF ENDURANCE 449 

tion of his campaign was that no British soldiers should 
come from the North to break his communications, cut 
off his supplies, and take him in the rear. None came 
from the North and none could come. With a singleness 
of purpose and a strategical soundness which have never 
been fully appreciated, Washington clung to the central 
zone of the Middle States. Whatever happened, he was 
determined that the British should never get the line of 
the Hudson and divide New England — whence he drew 
most of his troops — from the great Middle Colonies. 
Neither Burgoyne on the North, nor Cornwallis on the 
South, could draw him from his position. Attacks on the 
extremities he knew were not deadly, and he felt sure that 
they could be repulsed ; but if the centre was once pierced, 
then dire peril was at hand. So long as he kept an army 
together and the line of the Hudson open, so long as he 
could move at will, either eastward into New England or 
southward into Virginia, he knew that the ultimate success 
of the Revolution was merely a question of time. The 
period of active fighting in the North was over; that of 
waiting — dreary, trying, monotonous waiting — had set in, 
and it lasted until the moment for which Washington 
was watching arrived — the great moment when a decisive 
stroke could be given which would end the war. Two 
years the waiting and watching went on — wears of patience, 
suffering, and trial. Nothing was done that led straight 
to anything — nothing but the holding fast which was to 
bring the final victory. 

Very hard to understand now was the victory thus 
achieved by keeping the army in existence and the Rev- 
olution alive during that time of sullen, dogged waiting. 
Everywhere were visible signs of exhaustion, of longings 



45o THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

to have done with the business before it was really finished. 
Over seas the symptoms of fatigue were painfully apparent. 
England, as has always been the case when she is sore 
bested — and never was she in worse plight than then — was 
making a bold front to the enemies who ringed her round. 
She was suffering enormously. American war-ships and 
privateers were tearing her commerce to pieces. Her 
naval prestige was hurt to the quick by John Paul Jones 
taking the Serapis in a hand-to-hand fight and circling 
Great Britain with his cruisers, wrecking and pillaging on 
land and sea. A race of seamen as bold and hardy as her 
own, flying the flag of her revolted Colonies, swarmed along 
the highways of her commerce, and even in the English 
Channel were seizing her merchantmen and crippling her 
trade. Insurance rates rose ruinously, and English mer- 
chants faced losses which they would have deemed impos- 
sible five years before. France and Spain had both gone 
to war with her, threatened her coasts, employed her fleets, 
and soon beleaguered her great sentinel fortress at Gibral- 
tar. Wherever her vast possessions extended, wherever 
her drum-beat was heard, there was war; in the Indian 
Ocean, as well as in the Antilles, no colony was safe, and 
there was no Pitt now to guide the forces as in the days 
when she humbled the power of the House of Bourbon. 
But England set her teeth and would not yet cry hold. 
Her European enemies were suffering, too, and worse than 
she, for they were both unsound within, politically and 
financially. In France the disease which the monarchy 
had engendered and which the Revolution alone could cure 
was already deeply felt. France was beginning to long for 
rest, and, despite her early energy in the American cause, 
she was ready to sacrifice that cause to her own interests at 



THE TEST OF ENDURANCE 451 

any moment. France desired peace — an ill omen for 
America, with its Revolution only half fought out. With 
the ally of France the condition was even worse. Spain 
was corrupt, broken, rotten to the core, merely hiding her 
decrepitude under the mask of an empire which had once 
been great. Dragged into the war by France, she had no 
love whatever for the Americans — desired only to prey 
upon them and gather in what she could from the wreck 
of the British Empire. She, too, was feeling the strain of 
war ; exhaustion was upon her, and she, too, longed for 
peace. 

In such a situation, amid these powers of the Old 
World, occupied only with their own interests and enfee- 
bled by their own maladies, the fortunes of the young na- 
tion struggling painfully into life on the other side of the 
Atlantic were in sufficiently evil case. The work of saving 
them fell heavily upon the envoys of Congress, manfully 
battling for their cause abroad in the midst of these adverse 
and selfish forces. But help came to them and to the Re- 
volution, as it had come to the American armies so often, 
from the blunders of their adversary. Instead of trying to 
conciliate, England grew more and more offensive to all 
the neutral powers, and especially to those which were weak. 
She seized and searched their ships, interfered with their 
trade, and assumed to exercise an arrogant control over all 
their commerce. Hence protracted bickerings, protocols, 
notes, and all the machinery of diplomacy put into violent 
action, with much running hither and thither of eminent 
persons, and much speeding about of dusty couriers riding 
post-haste with despatches. It is very difficult and not 
very profitable to follow these performances with their 
turns and windings and futilities of all sorts. But out of 



452 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

these dim and confused discussions came two results of gen- 
uine importance to the world of that day, and particularly 
to the American Revolution. One was the neutrality of 
the Northern powers, headed by Russia and her redoubt- 
able Empress, aimed against England, and very trouble- 
some and crippling to the latter in the days of a conflict 
which had grown world-wide. The other result of real 
importance and meaning was England's making war upon 
the Dutch. This was pure aggression, born of a desire to 
break down a power once formidable as a rival and still a 
competitor in trade. The Dutch were innocent enough, 
their only real crime having been a refusal to become Eng- 
land's ally But whether they were innocent or guilty was 
of no consequence, and England made war upon them. 
She dealt a last fatal blow to the nation which had shat- 
tered the power of Spain, played an equal part among the 
great states of Europe, and given to England herself the 
one great man among her modern kings. Holland sank 
eventually under the attack ; but England added one more 
foe to those who now surrounded her in her "splendid 
isolation," and she threw open to her revolted colonies 
another money-market rich in capital, which went forth in 
loans to the Americans, quick enough to take advantage 
of such an opportunity. 

In the United States in 1779 the same relaxation of 
energy was apparent. Congress passed the winter and 
spring in long debates as to the terms of peace. Gerard, 
the French Minister, was active among the members, urg- 
ing them to accept conditions which involved every sort 
of sacrifice, largely for the benefit of Spain. So eager 
indeed, was the desire for peace that a strong party in Con- 
gress backed up all the wishes of the French envoy. At 



THE TEST OF ENDURANCE 453 

one time it looked as if the navigation of the Mississippi 
might be given up, and the great Northeastern fisheries 
were actually abandoned. Finally Congress evaded both 
issues by resolving to send an envoy to Spain, for which 
post John Jay was chosen, and meantime to insist on the 
navigation of the Mississippi, while the matter of the fish- 
eries was put over to a future treaty with Great Britain. 
In other respects the instructions were weak, with a plain- 
tive desire to bring the war to an end at almost any price 
running all through them. 

So Congress spent most of its time and strength in dis- 
cussing the means of getting peace when the war was not 
yet fought out, and did little or nothing to sustain that war 
which was flagrant about it. Thirty thousand men at 
least were needed for any effective movement against New 
York, and the army was not a third of that number, and 
was dwindling instead of growing. Washington came to 
Philadelphia and passed a month there with Congress, 
urging, reasoning, explaining, beginning now to press for 
better union and a strong central Government. Then he 
went back to the camp to continue the urgings and rea- 
sonings and stern advice on many subjects by letter. Not 
until March did Congress even vote additional battalions, 
and although this was well, voting men was by no means 
the same thing as getting them. The finances also were in 
frightful disorder. Many great wars, perhaps most of them, 
have been fought on irredeemable paper currency, and it 
is no doubt true that this was probably the quickest, if not 
the only resource of Congress at the beginning. But to 
fight on paper money alone, to raise no money bv taxa- 
tion, in fact to get no money at all from the people was 
an impossible scheme. Yet this was precisely what Con- 



454 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

gress attempted to do, and they had no other supply to 
look to except foreign loans which were uncertain and in- 
sufficient. So one emission of bills succeeded another, 
and the Continental money sank rapidly, while speculators 
and forestalled throve on the disorders of the currency, and 
the Government, poor though it might be, was robbed and 
plundered. The popular spirit relaxed its temper, encour- 
aged thereto by the foreign alliances and disheartened 
by the domestic disorders, as well as by the greed of those 
who amassed fortunes from the fluctuations of prices and 
fattened on the public distress. It looked as if the Amer- 
ican Revolution, rising victorious on the field of battle, 
might sink and wither away under the poison of civil dis- 
order and social debility. 

Bad as all these things were in their effect upon the 
American cause and upon the people themselves, the 
actual personal suffering fell to the lot of the army by 
whose existence the Revolution was sustained. Officers 
and men went unpaid for long periods, and when they re- 
ceived their pay it was in a paper currency which depreci- 
ated in their hands even before they could spend it or send 
it to their families. Hence great difficulty in holding the 
army together, and still greater difficulty in recruiting it. 
With lack of pay went lack of every provision and muni- 
tion of war, and, as a consequence, ill-clothed, ill-armed, 
ill-fed soldiers. In the midst of these grinding cares and 
trials stood Washington, with the problem of existence 
always at his door, with the great duty of success ever pres- 
ent at his side, and with only the patriotism of his men 
and his own grim courage and tenacity of purpose to sup- 
port him. Under the pressure of hard facts one plan after 
another had to be given up. A vigorous offensive cam- 



THE TEST OF ENDURANCE 455 

paign which would drive the British from the country was 
impossible. The next best thing was to keep them shut 
up where they were, and to hold fast, as had so wisely and 
steadily been done, to the central position in the valley of 
the Hudson, at the mouth of the great river whence blows 
could be struck hard and quickly either in New England 
or the Middle States, which must never be separated, no 
matter what happened. So Washington resumed perforce 
the defensive and watched and waited : to much purpose, 
as it in due course appeared, for the British seemed unable 
to make any effective movement, and lay cooped up in 
New York close to their ships, with their vigilant foe al- 
ways hovering near. Not until Washington could get an 
efficient army and the command of the sea would he be 
able to strike a fatal blow, and no man could tell when 
those conditions would come to pass. The silent General 
knew just what he needed, and equally well that he had it 
not. So he waited, unable to attack and ready to fight. 
The test of endurance had begun. 

The British on their side displayed activity only in 
spasmodic dashes here and there, of little meaning and 
petty results. General Matthews, with 2,500 men, went 
to Virginia, made a burning, pillaging raid, destroyed a 
certain number of houses and tobacco ships, and came 
back with his futilities to New York. Tryon, once royal 
Governor of New York, led another expedition of 2,600 
men into Connecticut. Here, as in Virginia, burning and 
pillaging and some sharp skirmishes with militia, who 
managed to leave their marks on the King's troops. Vil- 
lages, churches, houses, vessels, went up in smoke. A 
black trail marked the line followed by Tryon's raiders, 
and then he likewise returned to New York as empty in 



456 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

solid results as Matthews, and with a certain amount of 
destroyed property and increased hatred from the Ameri- 
cans to his credit. 

The worthlessness of these performances and the utter 
uselessness of such plundering forays were quite apparent 
to Washington, and, except for the suffering of the people 
upon whom they fell, troubled him little. But there was 
another movement of the enemy which awakened his 
keenest interest, because in it he saw possibilities of real 
danger. Clinton, after the return of Matthews, had gone 
up the river and taken possession of Stony Point and Ver- 
planck's Point, driving off the Americans and securing in 
this way control of Kings Ferry, an important line of 
communication between New York and New Jersey. 
Here was something which looked as if it had meaning. 
Perhaps an idea had come to Clinton, and possibly he was 
intending to master the Hudson Valley by building a line 
of formidable posts along the river. Certain it was that 
he had put a force of five hundred men at Stony Point, 
and was actively completing and strengthening the works 
there. If Clinton had any plan of this perilous sort it 
must be nipped at the start. No British posts must be ad- 
vanced to the north to endanger the American stronghold 
at West Point, which dominated and closed the river. So 
Washington decided to take Stony Point, and, as was his 
habit, chose the best man for the work, because in a des- 
perate undertaking like this everything depended on the 
leader. His choice fell on Anthony Wayne, then a Briga- 
dier-General and one of Washington's favorite officers. 
Wayne came of fighting stock. His grandfather, a York- 
shireman, nearly a century before had gone to Ireland, 
where he commanded a company of dragoons under Will- 



THE TEST OF ENDURANCE 457 

lam of Orange at the battle of the Boyne. From Ireland he 
had immigrated to the frontiers of Pennsylvania, and there 
his grandson was born 
in i 745. The family was 
in easy circumstances, 
and the boy received a 
good education, became 
a surveyor, and was trust- 
ed in important business 
by Franklin and other 
leading men of Philadel- 
phia. He took an eager 
interest and active part 
in politics, but when the 
note of war came the 
spirit of the old Captain 
of dragoons who had fol- 
lowed Dutch William 
blazed up again in the 
young American. He went at once into the army, and 
from that time forward he was constantly in the field. On 
the Northern frontier, in New York and New Jersey, and 
in the campaign about Philadelphia, Wayne, who had risen 
rapidly to general's rank, was always in the heat of every 
action. <l W 7 herever there is fighting there is Wayne, for 
that is his business," was said of him at the time, and said 
most truly. He was always fighting with great dash, cour- 
age, and success, and extricating himself by his quickness 
and intrepidity from the dangers into which his reckless 
daring sometimes led him. "Black Snake" the Indians 
called him then, and many years later, when he had beaten 
them under the walls of an English post in very complete 




ANTHONY WA YNE. 

n an unpublished portrait by Henry Elouiz, 17Q5. 

produced by permission 0/ C. S. Bradford, Esq. 



45^ THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

and memorable fashion, they named him "Tornado." He 
was fine-looking, soldierly, a great stickler for handsome 
dress and perfect equipment, so much so that some of the 
officers christened him "Dandy Wayne;" but the men 
who loved and followed him called him " Mad Anthony," 
and the popular name has clung to him in history. Such 
was the man whom Washington picked out for the peril- 






:r^^mss^kk *? ■ ■■■■■■ -atfftpcw- < k >- 3* 





&&*■. 



STONY POINT. 

Kings Ferry, an important line oj communication bet-ween New York and New 
Jersey, crossed from Die fort at Stony Point to Verplanck's Point. At the right is 
shown the r, verse side of the gold medal which was awarded by Congress to Anthony 
Wayne/or the capture of Stony Point. 

ous task he wanted to have performed. Tradition says 
that when Washington asked Wayne if he would storm 
Stony Point, Wayne replied, " I will storm hell if you will 
plan it." A very honest bit of genuine speech this ; quite 
instructive, too, in its way, and worth the consideration of 
the modern critic who doubts Washington's military 
capacity, in which the man who risked his life upon it had 
entire confidence. 

At all events so it fell out. Washington planned and 
Wayne stormed, carrying out his chief's arrangements to 



THE TEST OF ENDURANCE 459 

the letter. By this time Stony Point had been strongly 
fortified, and the approach was difficult. On July 15th, at 
noon, Wayne and his troops left Sandy Beach and made 
their way through the mountains by a hard march along 
gorges and over swamps, until, at eight o'clock in the 
evening, they were in the rear of the fort and within a 
mile and a half of the works. Here they rested, and made 
ready for the assault which was to take place at midnight. 
Wayne divided his force into two columns — one under 
Colonel Febiger on the right, the other under Colonel 
Butler on the left. At the extremity of each wing was a 
storming party of a hundred to a hundred and fifty men, 
who had volunteered for the duty and who marched with 
unloaded muskets, trusting wholly to the bayonet, while at 
the head of each storming party was a forlorn hope of twenty 
men. The reserve was composed of Lee's Light Horse, and 
three hundred men under General Muhlenburg constituted 
the covering party. Not until the lines were formed did 
Wayne tell his men the errand on which they had come. 
Then, in accordance with Washington's direction, each 
man fixed a piece of white paper in his cap, and the 
watchword " The Fort is Ours " was given out. All was 
quickly done, for every detail had been accurately ar- 
ranged, and as soon as the columns were formed they 
moved rapidly forward. Major Murfree and his North 
Carolinians in the centre were delayed by the tide in cross- 
ing the morass, and as they came through they met an out- 
post. The alarm was given and a heavy fire of grapeshot 
and musketry opened upon them. On they went without a 
pause, as if they were the only troops on the field, and every 
other column and division did the same. Wayne himself 
led the risfht wine. As he crossed the abatis a musket-ball 



4 6o THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

struck him on the head, bringing him down and wound- 
ing- him slightly. Dazed as he was by the blow, he called 
out that if he was mortally hurt he wanted to die in the 
fort, and his aides picked him up and bore him forward. 
The rush of the well-directed columns was irresistible. So 
swift and steady was the movement that they passed the 
abatis and went up and over the breastworks without 
check or hesitation. All was finished in a few minutes. 
Some heavy firing from the works, a short sharp rush, a 
clash and push of bayonets in the darkness, and the Amer- 
icans poured into the fort. They lost 98 men in killed 
and wounded, the British 94, while practically all the rest 
of the garrison, to the number of 25 officers and 447 men, 
were taken prisoners. All the guns and munitions of 
war, valued at nearly $160,000, fell into the hands of the 
victors, who, having won their fight in very complete 
fashion, levelled the works and withdrew. Soon after- 
ward Clinton again occupied the Point, but only to 
abandon it finally in the autumn. The plan of taking 
•possession of the Hudson by a series of fortified posts, 
if seriously intended, had been peremptorily stopped, and 
a sudden disaster had come to the British. It was a 
very gallant feat of arms, admirably planned, and bravely, 
punctually, and accurately performed. The unsteadiness 
of the Brandvwine and of Germantown had disappeared, 
and the discipline of Valley Forge was very plain here to 
the eyes of all mankind. The men who had fought be- 
hind intrenchments at Bunker Hill had been made into 
soldiers able to assault works held by the best troops of 
England. The raw material was good to start with, and 
someone aided by experience had evidently been at work 
upon it. 




THE CAPTURE OF STONY POINT BY IYAYNE. 



As Wayne -was crossing the abatis a musket-ball struck him on the head. Dazed as lie -was by the 
blow, he called out that if he ivas mortally hurt he zvanted to die in the fort, and his aides picked him up 
and bore him forward. 



THE TEST OF ENDURANCE 



463 




A month later the Americans were still further en- 
couraged by another daring exploit. This time the leader 
was Major Harry Lee, of the 
Light Horse, and the attack 
was made on one of the 
strongest of the enemy's 
posts. Paulus Hook, where 
Jersey City now stands, was 
a low, sanely spur of land run- 
ning well out into the river. 
At that time it was merely 
the point where the ferry- 
boat from New York landed, 
and whence the stage for 
Philadelphia started. The 
only buildings were the tav- 
ern and stables for the use of 
the coaches and their passen- 
gers, and the house of the guardian of the ferry. But the 
position was one of great natural military strength, in 
addition to being the vital point on the direct road to the 
South. Between the Hook and the main land was a 
morass, washed and often flooded by the tide, and crossed 
only by a narrow causeway used by the coaches and easily 
defended. Taking possession of this point when they 
first occupied New York, the British fortified it strongly 
with block-houses and redoubts, while on the water-side it 
was within easy reach of the city, and protected by the 
men-of-war. A more difficult place to reach it would 
have been hard to conceive, and Washington had grave 
doubts as to making an attempt to surprise it, although 
he finally gave a reluctant approval. Lee then had the 



MAJOR HENRY LEE. 

(" Light Horse Harry.'") 

From a painting l>y C. II'. Peak in 178S. 



464 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

roads and the surrounding country thoroughly examined, 
and sent out a scouting party under Captain Allen Mc- 
Lane, who prepared the way. Lee himself started on the 
morning of August iSth and, marching through the woods, 
became separated from the Virginia contingent, which led 
to many subsequent charges and counter-charges of little 
moment now, but very bitter then. Whatever the rea- 
sons, certain it is that Lee found himself close to the 
Hook at midnight with only a hundred and fifty men. 
tie knew that the ordinary garrison regiment and Van 
Buskirk's Loyal Americans amounted to at least two hun- 
dred, but he did not know that Van Buskirk had left the 
Hook that very night with a hundred and thirty men to 
attack an American post, and that their places had been 
taken by Hessians from New York, some of the best of 
the regular troops. Had he known all, however, it would 
probably have made but little difference. He was as dar- 
ing and reckless as Wayne, and the knowledge that he 
had only a hundred and fifty men did not check or frighten 
him. He had come to attack, and said that if he could 
not take the fort, he would at least die in it. So he gave 
the watchword " Be Firm," and started. It was after three 
o'clock, the tide was rising and the men struggled across 
the morass in silence. When they reached the ditch they 
plunged into the water, and then at last the garrison heard 
them and opened fire. But it was too late, and the 
Americans were too quick. Up they came, out of the 
ditch and into the works. A few Hessians threw them- 
selves into one block-house ; about a dozen of the British 
were killed and wounded, and five Americans. One hun- 
dred and fifty-nine British soldiers surrendered, and with 
them Lee withdrew at once, for relief was already on its 



THE TEST OF ENDURANCE 467 

way from New York. It was not very easy to retreat 
with prisoners outnumbering his own force, and Lee had 
some hard marching and narrow escapes ; but by his swift- 
ness and energy he came through successfully, bringing 
his captives with him. Paulus Hook led to nothing ex- 
cept so far as it cooled the British and strengthened their 
purpose to stay close in New York, a very desirable feel- 
ing for the Americans to cultivate. We may read now 
the alarm and disgust it caused to the English officers in 
the letter of General Pattison to Lord Townshend, while 
the joy on the American side corresponded to the depres- 
sion on that of their enemies. It was becoming very clear 
that soldiers capable of storming posts like Stony Point 
and Paulus Hook lacked only numbers and equipment to 
be able to face any troops in the open field. A long dis- 
tance had been traversed from the panic-stricken flight at 
Kip's Bay to the firm unyielding charge over earthworks 
and into redoubts of the men who, without question or 
misgiving, followed " Mad Anthony Wayne " and " Light 
Horse Harry" in the darkness of those summer nights. 

Apart from these two dashing attacks little else was 
done by the Americans in the campaign, if such it could 
be called, of 1779. An elaborately prepared expedition 
against the British post at Castine, on the Penobscot, 
went to wreck and ruin. Both troops and ships were ill- 
commanded. The former landed, but failed to carry the 
works, and Sir George Collier, arriving with a sixty-four- 
gun ship and five frigates, destroyed two of the American 
vessels and compelled the burning of the rest. The troops 
then took to the woods and made their w T ay home as best 
they could. It was a dispiriting outcome of an attempt 
made with high hopes and great effort. 



468 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

In New York Sullivan led a strong expedition of about 
4,000 men against the Six Nations. He fought an aetion 
at Newtown with some of these allies of the Crown, whose 
numbers have been variously estimated at from seven hun- 
dred to fifteen hundred men. The Indians were defeated, 
but drew off after their fashion with apparently slight loss. 
Sullivan then burned their villages, marched through their 
countrv, showed them that the King could not protect 
them, cooled their zeal and checked the recurring danger 
of Indian inroads upon the settlements. There was much 
criticism and heart-burning at the time, and there has been 
endless discussion since about the merits and demerits of 
this expedition, an amount of words having been expended 
upon it quite out of proportion to its importance. There 
were errors very likely, but it served its purpose, and 
cleared and protected the western borders of New York, 
which was all that Washington, who planned it, cared for. 

The rest of the fighting in the North did not rise above 
small raids and petty affairs of outposts and partisan bands. 
Yet when the campaign closed, desultory as all its opera- 
tions had been, the solid gain, which we can estimate now 
far better than could be done at the time, was all with the 
Americans. Clinton had been forced to abandon Rhode 
Island, and all New England was once more in American 
hands. He had also felt compelled to withdraw from 
Stony Point and Yerplanck's Point, and the Americans 
had again taken possession of Kings Ferry and thus con- 
trolled all the upper country. The British were confined 
more closely than ever to the city of New York, and 
Washington still held the great line of the Hudson *in an 
iron grasp, and was master of the New England and Mid- 
dle States clear from an enemy, firmly united and with free 



THE TEST OF ENDURANCE 469 

communications open between them. The first stage in 
the test for endurance had been passed successfully. 

Then came the winter, one of unusual severity, with 
heavy snows and severe frosts. Military operations were 
out of the question, but the dreary months had to be lived 
through. It was a sore trial, and all the appeals of the 
Commander-in-Chief to Congress for aid were vain. The 
executive part of the Government, such as it was, stood 
motionless and paralyzed ; while the army was unpaid, pro- 
visions to feed the men could be gathered only with the 
utmost difficulty, and nothing effective was clone to fill the 
thinning ranks. Much of the noblest and best work of 
the Revolution, that work which was most instinct with 
patient patriotism, was done in these winter camps by the 
half-starved, unpaid officers and men who formed the Am- 
erican army, and who, by their grim tenacity and stubborn 
endurance, kept that army in existence and the American 
Revolution with it. Very hard to bear then, very difficult 
to realize now, neither picturesque nor soul-stirring, like 
the battles and sieges which every one knows by heart, this 
holding the army together, and yet worthy of all praise and 
remembrance, for it was by this feat that the Revolution 
was largely won. In the midst of it all was Washington, 
facing facts unflinchingly, looking ahead, planning, advis- 
ing, generally with no result, but sometimes getting a little 
done when much was impossible. Altogether a very noble 
and human figure contending against many weaknesses, 
stupidities, and hindrances of every sort, with a courage 
and patience which merit the consideration of all subse- 
quent generations. 

As Washington foresaw, without recruits and proper 
support from the drooping Congress, his army dwindled. 



470 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

In May he appears to have had only seven thousand men, 
a month later less than four thousand, to hold the Middle 
and Eastern States. Bad news also came from the South 
that Charleston had surrendered, and at that dark moment 
Knyphausen, with a powerful force, advanced into New 
Jersey. The militia turned out promptly. They were sea- 
soned to war by this time, and, although greatly outnum- 
bered, they fought stubbornly and fell back slowly before 
the British. At Springfield Maxwell made a determined 
stand, inflicted severe loss on the Hessians, and gave time 
for Washington to come up and take a position so strong 
that Knyphausen, although he had twice as many men, did 
not venture to attack, but on the contrary began to retreat, 
the Americans following him closely and engaging his rear 
successfully. This expedition degenerated into a mere 
plundering raid, was effectively checked and accomplished 
nothing. 

Soon afterward Clinton returned from the success at 
Charleston. He made a movement into New Jersey to 
supplement that of Knyphausen, while, at the same time, 
he sent troops to threaten the American communications on 
the Hudson. Washington dealt with the latter diversion, 
while Greene prepared to give battle at Springfield. But 
after a heavy cannonade the British withdrew, suffering not 
a little on the retreat from the American attacks, and crossed 
over once more to Staten Island. The New Jersey cam- 
paign, if anything so serious had been intended, faded away 
harmlessly. It was the last attempt of the British to do 
anything of an offensive or important character by military 
operations in the North, and with the return of Clinton to 
New York not only their last but their best opportunity 
ended. When they invaded New Jersey, Washington was 



THE TEST OF ENDURANCE 471 

at his very weakest, and the public spirit was depressed 
and shaken by the disasters in the South. Clinton, more- 
over, outnumbered his opponent four to one, yet he failed 
to push his advantage home, and Washington stayed the 
advance of the British with his inferior force and threw 
them back on New York. The chance thus wasted by the 
English General could never come again, for a new factor 
now appeared which made any aggressive action by the 
British hopeless. Unable to defeat Washington alone, or 
to shatter his small but determined army, it was clearly out 
of the question to make any impression upon him when 
backed by a fine force of French regular troops ; and on 
July 10, 1780, these troops, to the number of 6,000 and 
led by De Rochambeau, arrived in Newport. Clinton 
made a show of going to attack them, but it was only a 
show, and his real effort was concentrated in writing a 
grumbling letter to the Ministry and in demanding rein- 
forcements. It must be admitted that, ineffective as Clin- 
ton was in this instance, he was right in his judgment of 
the situation. The arrival of a French army made the 
cause of England hopeless in the North without large rein- 
forcements and capable commanders, neither of which she 
was able to furnish. 

But although the coming of the French was in reality 
decisive, at the moment it was fruitful to Washington in 
nothing but disappointed hopes and frustrated plans. The 
effect upon the country was to make people believe that with 
these well-equipped allies the war was really at an end, and 
that no further effort on their part was needed, an idea 
which filled Washington with anger and disgust, not merely 
because it was utterly unfounded, but because to him it 
seemed entirely ignoble. He had always said and believed 



472 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

that the Revolution must be won by Americans, could be 
won in no other way, and would not be worth winning 
in any different fashion. He rejoiced in the coming of 
the French because he felt that it ought to spur Congress 
and people alike to renewed exertion, and when, on the 
contrary, it acted as a sedative and his own army seemed 
still to diminish instead of to increase, he was filled with 
mortification and anxiety. His one idea, with this new sup- 
port of the French open to him, was to fight, and to that 
end he tried every plan, but all in vain. One difficulty 
after another appeared. His own army was short of pow- 
der and supplies, and the new levies dragged slowly in. 
Still these were his old familiar enemies, and he could have 
dealt with them as he always did in some way more or less. 
But the troubles which arose on the side of the French 
were new and more serious. The French ships could not 
eret into the harbor of New York, there was sickness in the 
army, the British threatened Newport, and finally blockaded 
it, and De Rochambeau would not move without the second 
detachment, which was confidently expected, but which, as 
a matter of fact, was securely shut up by the English fleet 
at Brest. A very trying time it was to all concerned, but 
chiefly to the man upon whom the great responsibilities 
rested, as the summer slipped away, full of trial, irritation, 
and disappointment, with nothing done and nothing at- 
tempted. A long summer it was of appeals to the French 
and of stern letters to Congress, in which we can read to- 
day all the bitterness of spirit which filled the man of 
action who knew just what he wanted to do, who longed 
to strike, and who was vet bound hand and foot. 

From the time when the French landed, Washington 
had wished to confer with De Rochambeau, for, vigorous as 



THE TEST OF ENDURANCE 473 

his letters were, he knew well the importance of a personal 
meeting. Yet he did not dare to leave his army or the 
great river to which he had clung so desperately for so many 
weary months, knowing that there he held the enemy by 
the throat. At last, as summer was passing into autumn, 
it seemed as if he could go with safety, and on September 
1 8th he left Greene in command and started for Hartford, 
where he met De Rochambeau on the 20th. He was a 
man of few holidays, and this little change from the long 
and dreary anxiety of the army and the camp was pleasant 
to him. His spirits rose as he rode, and the heartfelt 
greetings of the people in the towns as he passed to and 
from Hartford touched and moved him deeply. Pleasant 
indeed was this little bit of sunshine, coming in the midst 
of days darkened with care and never-ending, often fruit- 
less toil, and yet it was only the prelude to one of the 
hardest trials which Washington was called to bear. It 
seems as if his uneasiness and unwillingness to leave the 
army were almost prophetic, but. even the most troub- 
led and foreboding fancy could not have pictured the 
ugly reality which he was suddenly called to meet and 
face. 

Benedict Arnold was born in Norwich, Conn., but 
belonged to the well-known Rhode Island family. De- 
scended from an early Governor of the latter Colony, 
whose name he bore, he represented one of the oldest and 
best families in that State. He was well educated, but ran 
away at the age of fifteen to join the Northern army in 
the old French war, and then, wearying of his service, he 
deserted and came home alone through the wilderness, 
a fit beginning for a life of reckless adventure both in 
peace and war. From his escapade on the frontier he 



474 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 




turned to earn his own living in the modest capacity of an 
apothecary's clerk. Then he became an apothecary and 

bookseller himself, made 
money and abandoned these 
quiet avocations for the life 
of a merchant. He carried 
on commerce with Canada, 
the West Indies, and Eu- 
rope, made many voyages 
on his own ships — some- 
thing much more congenial 
to him than standing be- 
hind a shop-counter — saw 
the world, had adventures, 
and shot a British Captain 
in a duel for calling him 
"a d— d Yankee." He 
was conspicuous for good looks, physical strength and 
high personal courage. When the news arrived of the 
fight at Lexington he was in New Haven. To such a 
temperament the note of war was an irresistible appeal, 
and he offered to lead the Governor's Guards at once to 
the scene of action. The General in command thought 
that regular orders should be awaited, the select-men of the 
town refused ammunition, and Arnold thereupon threat- 
ened to break open the magazines, bore down resistance, 
got the powder and marched to Cambridge. From that 
time forward he was in the forefront of the fiafhtinaf. He 
was with Allen at Ticonderoga, and captured St. Johns. 
He returned to Cambridge and obtained command of the 
expedition to Canada from the East, which was to meet 
that of Montgomery descending the St. Lawrence from 



GENERAL BENEDICT ARNOLD IN 1778. 
After the drawing by P. D11 Simitilre. 



THE TEST OF ENDURANCE 475 

the West. His march across the Maine wilderness was 
one of the most desperate ever made, but he brought his 
men through after inconceivable hardships and sufferings 
and laid siesre to Ouebec. He headed the assault upon the 
town in the bitter cold of New Year's eve, and was badly 
wounded. Still he held on all through the winter, keep- 
ing Quebec besieged, was relieved in the spring, and then 
shared in the retreat of the Americans before the Brit- 
ish advance. On Lake Champlain he gathered a fleet of 
small vessels and fought a fierce and stubborn action 
with the British. He was defeated by superiority of 
numbers, but he brought off part of his ships and all his 
surviving men to Ticonderoga. In this gallant fight, 
comparatively little known and never fully appreciated, Ar- 
nold so crippled his enemy as to prevent the advance of 
Carleton that year, a potent cause in the delays which 
brought Burgoyne and the great peril of the Revolution 
to wreck the following summer. In that decisive cam- 
paign he played a brilliant part. At Freeman's Farm he 
repulsed the attempt to turn the left, and if supported 
would have won a complete victory. But Gates supported 
no one, and had no conception of how to win a battle, so 
that after the fight Arnold gave way to his temper, never 
of the pleasantest, and an angry quarrel ensued. Arnold was 
thereupon relieved, but not actually superseded, and re- 
mained in the camp. In the battle of October 7th, with- 
out orders, he went upon the field as a volunteer, and in a 
series of splendid charges broke the British lines and flung 
them back shattered beyond recovery. Again he was 
badly wounded in the same leg as at Quebec, and was car- 
ried on a litter to Albany, where he had a slow recovery. 
Congress at last did him the tardy justice of a commission, 



4;6 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

which gave him his rightful seniority ; and as he was still 
too lame for active service, he was put in command at 
Philadelphia after its evacuation by the British. 

Thus he came to the turning-point of his life. A very 
brilliant record up to this time was his, none more so in the 
American army. Great qualities were in this man, a great 
force either for good or evil, say some of those critics who are 
wise after the event. But very plain even then to all men 
were the military talents, the disregard of danger, the read- 
iness for every peril, and a wild dare-devil spirit which shrank 
from nothing. That spirit had led Benedict Arnold through 
the Maine woods, over the walls of Quebec, across the decks 
of the ships at Valcour Bay and into the thick of the British 
squadrons in the battles in New York. It had endeared him 
to Washington, who loved above all men a ready, fearless 
fighter, indifferent to responsibilities and careless of danger. 
These were the qualities, too, which made him one of the he- 
roes of the army and of the popular imagination. But that 
same dare-devil temper and reckless spirit which stopped 
at nothing were quite capable of going as unhesitatingly in 
one direction as another. We now know that Arnold had 
neither morals nor convictions, and a man so destitute of 
honor and conscience, when utterly reckless and fearless 
of consequences, is the most dangerous man that can be 
produced. 

Had Arnold never been compelled to leave the field he 
might have come down to us as one of the bravest and 
best of our Revolutionary soldiers. He gave up, however, 
active service to command in a city, where there was abun- 
dant opportunity of wrong-doing; and there all the base 
qualities of a thoroughly sordid and immoral nature, hidden 
heretofore under a splendid personal courage and the display 



THE TEST OF ENDURANCE 477 

of real military talents, which had asserted themselves often 
on the day of battle, came out. In Philadelphia he married 
Miss Shippen, the handsome daughter of a Tory family, 
and in this way he came to live among loyalists and hear 
their talk. Then he spent money lavishly and gambled 
away his fortune, so that at the end of two years he found 
himself in sore straits. He had a quarrel with Joseph 
Reed, President of Pennsylvania, charges were preferred, 
and a committee of Congress acquitted him. Further ac- 
cusations were made, but a court-martial again acquitted 
him on the serious charges ; and Washington, in repri- 
manding him as required by the court, really gave him 
high praise because he thought Arnold a persecuted man. 
There is no excuse for Arnold in all this, because 
Congress had a singular aptness for favoring the inferior 
and frowning upon the best officers. They treated Mor- 
gan and Greene little better than they did Arnold, until 
events sternly taught them the necessary lesson. That 
these attacks angered Arnold is not to be questioned ; but 
what really moved him were his own poverty and the con- 
viction that the American Revolution, then in the desper- 
ate stress of sullen endurance, had failed. To a man with 
the rat instinct largely developed, that was enough. The 
dare-devil courage, the keen mind, and the cold heart would 
do the rest. 

Washington followed up his laudatory reprimand by 
offering Arnold the command of one of the wings of the 
army, which the latter declined, on the ground that his 
wounds still forbade active service. The real reason was 
that since early in the spring he had been in communica 
tion with the British, writing, under a feigned name, to 
Major Andre of Clinton's staff ; and in order to make prof- 



4/8 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

itable terms for his treachery, it was necessary that he 
should have something to sell. A division of the Conti- 
nental army was not salable, and could not be delivered ; 
hence the refusal, and much active effort and intrigue, 
which finally procured for him the command of West 
Point. All Arnold's communications with Andre were 




Fort Putnam. West Point. Constitution Island. 

THE HUDSON RIVER AT WEST POINT. 
The Beverly Robinson house, from -which Arnold escaped to the Vulture, stood among the trees directly 

under the fit guise of a commercial correspondence, and 
here at last was a valuable piece of property to barter and 
sell, for \Yest Point had been selected by Washington as 
the position where he could best hold the Hudson fast and 
prevent any advance of the enemy up the valley, either by 
land or water. The place had been elaborately and strongly 
fortified, and no less than three thousand men garrisoned 
the works. It was almost impregnable to attack, its loss 



THE TEST OF ENDURANCE 479 

would have been a grievous disaster to the American 
cause, and so the British determined to buy and Arnold 
to sell it. He took command early in August, and at 
once attempted to open communications through Beverly 
Robinson with reference ostensibly to that gentleman's 
confiscated property. Washington checked this scheme 
innocently but effectively by deciding that such matters 
belonged to the civil and not to the military authority. 

This plan having failed, Clinton insisted that there 
must be a personal interview with his agent, and various 
abortive attempts were made to bring about a meeting. 
At last, on the night of September 21st, Arnold con- 
trived to have Andre" brought off by Joshua Hett Smith 
from the sloop-of-war Vulture, which was lying in the 
river below the Point. The young Englishman was di- 
rected not to go within the American lines, not to change 
his uniform, and to accept no papers ; and thus instructed 
Andre with a light heart landed at Long Clove, where Ar- 
nold met him. The two mounted and rode through Hav- 
erstraw to Smith's home, inside the American lines, and 
Andre had disobeyed his first order. Then the conspirators 
went to work. Clinton was to come up the river with ships 
from Rodney's fleet and surprise West Point on September 
25th ; Arnold, having scattered his men, was to surrender 
promptly and then lure Washington to come with rein- 
forcements to destruction. For all this Arnold was to re- 
ceive as reward a commission as Brigadier-General in the 
British army and a sum of money. It was all " hire and 
salary, not revenge." These interesting negotiations con- 
sumed much time, and the day was well advanced when 
they ended. While they were still in progress, there was 
a sound of firing, and the conspirators saw from the window 



4 8o THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 




' ' r. *+* 



OLD FORT PUTNAM— THE KEY TO THE DEFENCES AT WEST POINT- 
SHOWING TllE MAGAZINES 



I>t flic distant e 



Hi the Hudson Ri 



an American batten' shell the Vulture and force her to 
drop down the river. An uncomfortable sight this for 
Andre, but Arnold bore it with entire philosophy appar- 
ently, and rode off, leaving his guest to get back to New 
York as best he might. He provided him with passes and 
also papers, plans of the fort and tin; like, which Andre 
accepted, and violated his second instruction. After Ar- 
nold's departure the day wore slowly away, and Andre be- 
gan to think of his escape. Then it appeared that Smith, 



THE TEST OF ENDURANCE 



481 



a very careful person, had no notion of running the risk 
involved in taking his guest off to the Vulture. So it was 
agreed that they should go by land, and Andre then changed 
his uniform and put on ordinary clothes. He thus broke 
his third and last instruction, and was now in every respect 
within the definition of a spy. The two men started at 
dusk, passed through the American lines, spent the night at 
a house in the neighborhood, and resumed their march in 
the early morning. After having proceeded a little way, 
the careful and innocent Smith parted from his guest, and 
went back to report to Arnold that all was well, while 
Andre rode on cheerfully, feeling that all danger was over. 




HEAD-QUARTERS AT TAPPAN FROM WHICH THE ORDER FOR ANDRE'S EXE- 
CUTION WAS ISSUED. 



He was in fact crossing the neutral ground, and would 
soon reach the British lines. Suddenly, out of the bushes 
came three men, rough-looking fellows, one in a refugee's 



482 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

uniform, who bade the traveller stand. Andre was in the 
region of the guerillas, who belonged to one party or the 
other in name, and fought steadily for their own hand, so he 
hastily concluded that these men were " cowboys," partisans 
of his own side, and ordered them to give way, as he was a 
British officer. It appeared, however, that the dress of 
the men had misled him, and that these unwelcome persons 
were " Skinners," as the American guerillas were agree- 
ably called. A very unpleasant discovery this to a British 
officer travelling in disguise from the American lines. So 
Arnold's pass was produced, but with little effect on these 
highly irregular combatants. Then bribes were tried, and 
Andre* thought that if he could have given enough, they 
would have released him. But in this respect results at 
least are on the side of the " Skinners," who were three in 
number, and named respectively Paulding, Williams, and 
Van Wart. They searched Andre, found the fatal papers 
in his boots, and Paulding, being able to read, an accom- 
plishment apparently not shared by his companions, at 
once with great justice pronounced the prisoner a spy, and 
said subsequently that after finding the papers ten thousand 
guineas would not have bought Andre's freedom. Cer- 
tain it is that they refused his very handsome offers, took 
him to Northcastlc, and won a secure and very well-earned 
place in history by their firm and intelligent action. 

Colonel Jamieson, to whom they delivered their cap- 
tive, was either less intelligent or less honest than the rough 
free lances of the neutral ground. Charity would describe 
Colonel Jamieson's action as due to dulness, and exact, frank 
justice as smacking of knavery. History has been guided 
by charity and not by justice in this respect, but of the utter 
stupidity of Jamieson's action on the charitable hypothesis 



THE TEST OF ENDURANCE 



483 



there can be no doubt. He ordered that Andre be taken 
to Arnold's head-quarters, with a letter from himself ex- 
plaining the circumstances, and that the papers be sent to 
Washington. If this amiable arrangement had been car- 
ried out all would have gone well, and Andre would have 
escaped. But luckily intelligence and honesty had not 





THE HOUSE IN WHICH AX PRE WAS 
IMPRISONED IS SHOWN ON THE 
LEFT (A BOTE). THE ENCLOSED 
STONE (BELOW) MARKS THE 
PL.hCE WHERE ANDRE WAS EX- 
ECUTED. 



wholly departed from Northcastle. Major Benjamin 
Tallmadge, returning from a scout, saw the blunder which 
had been committed and forced Jamieson to recall Andre 
and his escort, although he could not prevent the despatch 
of the letter to Arnold. Under the guard of Sergeant 
John Dean and his men, vigilant and incorruptible, Andre 
was held fast and taken out of Jamieson's reach to New 



484 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

Salem. When the young officer saw that the game was 
up he revealed his name and rank and wrote a letter to 
Washington, making the same confession. The con- 
spiracy had failed, for the message which was to bring 
Clinton and the British licet had been stopped, and one 
of the conspirators was in the toils. 

At West Point, however, none of these things were 
known. It was the 25th of September, the very day 
upon which the attack was to be made and the post 
delivered, and Arnold had no reason to think that all 
would not come to pass as he had planned. Even such 
a hardened and reckless man as Arnold may have felt 
nevertheless a little natural nervousness under these con- 
ditions, and if he did, the first event of the day was not 
likely to console him, for at breakfast appeared Hamilton 
and McHenry, aides of the Commander-in-Chief. Wash- 
ington had returned sooner than had been expected, and 
it was going to be extremely difficult to betray West 
Point before his very eyes. The General himself had 
turned off to look at some redoubts, and telling his aides 
that like all young men they were in love with Mrs. Ar- 
nold, had bade them ride on to the Robinson house. So 
a pleasant party sat down there to breakfast, one of them 
revolving manv things in his mind about which he did 
not converse. Presently a note was brought to Arnold, 
lie read it with but slight appearance of emotion, said 
he must go to West Point, and left the room. The note 
was Jamieson's letter. The plot was discovered, and all 
that remained was flight. To his wife, who followed 
him from the room, he told what had happened. She 
fainted, and Arnold, pausing at the breakfast-room to 
say that Mrs. Arnold was ill, rushed from the house, 




ARNOLD TELLS HIS WIFE OF THE DISCOVERY OF HIS TREASON. 



THE TEST OF ENDURANCE 4^7 

flung- himself into his barge, and under pretence of a flag 
of truce was rowed to the Vulture. The treason had 
failed, and the traitor had escaped. 

Soon afterward, Washington came to the house, had 
a hasty breakfast, and went over to West Point to visit 
the works. When he reached the fort, no salute broke 
the quiet of the morning, no guard turned out to receive 
him, no commandant was there to greet him. Surprised 
not to find Arnold, he made the tour of the works, and 
then returned to the house, to be met, as he came up from 
the river, by Hamilton with the Jamieson letter. Wash- 
ington took the blow with the iron self-control of which 
he alone was capable. To Lafayette and Knox, when he 
showed them the letter, he merely said, " Whom can we 
trust now?" for the idea that the conspiracy might be 
wide-spread was that which first absorbed his mind. But 
there was no confusion. The orders went thick and fast. 
Hamilton was sent to try to intercept Arnold, unfortu- 
nately too late. To Wade went the message: "Arnold 
has gone to the enemy. You are in command. Be vig- 
ilant." Every precaution was taken, every arrangement 
made, every danger guarded against. There was really 
little need of such care, for Arnold had no accomplices. 
He had meant to have no sharer in the rewards, and he 
had no partners in his crime. When night came, Wash- 
ington said to Captain W T ebster, who commanded the 
guard, " I believe I can trust you," and the son of that 
brave New Hampshire soldier in all his brilliant career 
never won a higher meed of praise. Throughout the 
night the sentry outside the room of the Commander-in- 
Chief heard him pacing up and down, the steady footfall 
sounding clearly in the still autumn night. Washington 



488 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



• 



m 
■ . 

/ 





r> a. ?> 
















/* 






/ 

. ■ a & /• 








I ■ 

' Vinson's Iiouse t September 2$, 1/80. 

LETTER FROM GENERAL WASHINGTON TO COLONEL WADE, APPRISING 
HIM OF ARNOLD'S TREASON 

\n facsimile fot ' *ime from the original in th i / Francis 11. ll'arft. Esq., cj 

//■; wit ■■■■, Ma '.'..,,.• 

had said nothing" and done everything at the moment the 
blow fell, but, when night came and he was alone, he 
could neither sleep nor rest. It was not alone the im- 
minent peril to his cause which filled his mind, but the 
thought of the traitor. lie had trusted Arnold because 
he so admired his lighting qualities, he had helped him 
and stood by him, and the villain had sold his post, tried 
to wreck the Revolution, and tied to the enemy. It was 



THE TEST OF ENDURANCE 



489 



very hard to bear in silence, but all Washington said 
afterward was that in his opinion it was a mistake to 
suppose that Arnold suffered from remorse, because he 
was incapable of it. 

The rest of the story is easily told. Andre was tried 
and condemned as a spy. No other verdict was possible. 
He was hanged, and met his death with the perfect cour- 
age of a well-bred and gallant gentleman. Joshua Hett 
Smith, the cautious and elusive, was also tried, slipped 
through the fingers of justice, and lived to write, many 
years after, an account of the conspiracy from his own 




PART OF THE GREAT CHAIN (NOW IN THE COLLECTION OF RELICS AT 
WEST POINT) WHICH WAS STRETCHED ACROSS THE HUDSON BETWEEN 
WEST POINT AND CONSTITUTION' ISLAND TO OBSTRUCT NA VIGA HON. 

Each link is more than two feet long.and weighs one hundred end forty founds. 'lite chain was held in 
pi, iet by a series of logs and anchors. 



point of view. Arnold received his reward in money and 
rank, served in the British army, and left descendants 
who in England rose to distinction in later days. Thus 
the treason came to naught. If it had succeeded it 



490 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

would have been a grave disaster, hut would it not have 
changed essentially the course or outcome of the Revolu- 
tion. It failed, and had no result whatever except upon 
the two conspirators. There hang about it the mystery 
and attraction which always attach to dark plottings preg- 
nant with possibilities, but there is really nothing in it but 
the individual interest which is inseparable from such a 
fate as that of Andre, and such an unusual exhibition of 
cold and sordid perfidy as that of Arnold. 

So the summer ended. No military operations had 
been attempted, and Clinton had tried in vain to sub- 
stitute bribery and treachery for a campaign in the field. 
The French had arrived, but, despite Washington's efforts, 
all combinations for an active movement had failed. The 
second stage in the trial of endurance had closed, and 
both sides retired to winter quarters — Clinton to New 
York and Washington to New Jersey, where he pro- 
vided for his men in a line of cantonments. The Ameri- 
can army was still in existence, the line of the Hudson 
was still in Washington's unyielding grasp, and the last 
scene of the war was about to open. 



CHAPTER XIX 

YORKTOWN 

ANOTHER summer had gone. Another winter 
was to be faced. It was well for America that 
Arnold's plot had failed, but nevertheless there was 
nothing inspiriting in a baffled treason, and there had been 
no fighting and no victories to help people and army to bear 
the season of cold, of waiting, and of privation which lay 
before them. When Washington retreated through the 
Jerseys, in 1776, it looked as if the end had come ; but at 
least there had been hard nVhtin^, and the end was to be 
met, if at all, in the open field with arms in hand, and all 
the chances that war and action and courage could give. 
Now, four years later, the Revolution seemed to be going 
down in mere inaction through the utter helplessness of 
what passed for the central Government. To those who 
looked beneath the surface the prospect was profoundly 
disheartening. It was in truth a very dark hour — perhaps 
the darkest of the whole war. To Washington, keenly alive 
to the underlying causes of the situation, and laboring for 
union and better government, even while he bore the en- 
tire responsibility of the military operations, the outlook 
seemed black indeed. No matter how evil the military 
conditions, no matter how serious the defeats and checks 

in the field, he never wavered so long as the difficulties 

491 



492 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

could be met by fighting the enemy on any terms. But 
this ruinous, heart-breaking waiting, this creeping paralysis 
and dry rot which were upon the Government, wore 
upon him and galled him, because he seemed so helpless 
in dealing with them. We catch a note in his letters at 
this time never to be found at any other, not even when 
he declared that, in the event of final British victory, he 
would cross the mountains to found a new state and begin 
a fresh struggle in the Western forests. It is not the note 
of hopeless despair, for he never despaired, but there is a 
ring of bitterness and of anger in his words very rarely 
to be heard. In October, 1780, he wrote : "Our present 
distresses are so great and complicated that it is scarcely 
within the powers of description to give an adequate idea 
of them. With regard to our future prospects, unless 
there is a material change both in our civil and military 
policy, it will be in vain to contend much longer. We 
are without money, without provision and forage, except 
what is taken by impress, without clothing, and shortly 
shall be, in a manner, without men. In a word, we have 
lived upon expedients till we can live no longer. The 
history of this war is a history of temporary devices in 
stead of system, and economy which results from it." 

Then follows the often and patiently reiterated advice 
as to the improvements and changes in government essen- 
tial if the contest was to be continued. Congress read 
these letters and, as usual, did little or nothing. They 
passed a resolution for taxes to be distributed among the 
States, and that was all. Resolutions advising reluctant 
and independent States to pay money were well-inten- 
tioned things after their kind, but wholly visionary, with 
no reality, no actual meaning to them. They were small 



YORKTOWN 403 

comfort to the General of the hungry, half-clothed, dwind- 
ling army who was dealing with things exactly as they 
were. Presently what Washington foresaw and dreaded 
came to pass. A portion of the Pennsylvania line in 
quarters at Morristown revolted, attacked their officers, 
and marched to Princeton. Here was something not to 
be avoided, not to be met by debate and resolutions. It 
was a hard, ugly fact ; it looked Congress angrily in the 
face, and Congress was not so used to facts as their Gen- 
eral. In much anxiety a committee was hastily appointed, 
with Sullivan at its head, and betook itself to Princeton, 
together with Reed, the President of Pennsylvania, to 
meet the mutineers. Washington had started to come 
himself ; but the suspicion born of Arnold's treason woke 
once more into life, men began to doubt about the other 
troops, and he decided that he ought to remain where he 
was and leave the matter with Congress. Reed and the 
committee promptly yielded to the demands of the muti- 
neers, who thereupon gave up Clinton's emissaries to a 
deserved execution as spies. This was all very well, but 
the Congressional method of quelling mutiny soon bore its 
natural fruit. Part of the New Jersev line followed the 
evil example set and revolted, expecting to achieve the 
same results as their fellow-soldiers of Pennsylvania. But 
Washington, by this time, had had quite enough of the 
Congressional system ; he came to the scene of disorder 
himself, crushed the mutiny with a strong hand, and that 
particular danger was over. 

The mutiny in reality was but the expression, in rough, 
inarticulate fashion, of the hatred of wrong, injustice, and 
suffering inflicted on the army and on the Revolution by 
the imbecility of the Government. It said, in a rude, em- 



494 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

phatic way, what Washington had been saying over and 
over again, by word of mouth and countless letters. It 
declared harshly that the Government of Congress was a 
failure ; that the Confederation which had been formed, 
and at last agreed to, was no better ; that American sol- 
diers were ready to fight, but that they could not carry on 
war without arms, clothing, money, or recruits. The man 
with the musket was getting to the point where he meant 
to be fed, even if others starved — a perilous point for in- 
efficient rulers at all times. Better government was de- 
manded, a government which could act and execute and 
do something ; and Congress replied by futile efforts to 
obtain for itself power to levy a duty from customs, and 
had much talk and debate, but no other result. Very 
clearly the American Revolution was getting into sore 
straits. After having won in the field it was in imminent 
danger of going ingloriously to pieces because the thirteen 
Slates could not bring forth a government that would 
govern. It is an unpleasant picture of inefficiency to look 
back upon, due to local prejudices, State-rights, and an 
inability to rise to the heights of union and achievement. 
The worst of it was that nothing could be done. No 
new and efficient government could be created in time to 
work. The hard problem was how to win victory before 
chaos came, with the broken instruments which alone 
could be had. To young Laurens, going abroad, Wash- 
ington wrote that our only hope was in financial aid from 
Europe ; without it the next campaign would flicker out 
and the Revolution die. Monev and superiority of sea- 
power, he cried, were what we must have. To the man 
who believed that the Revolution to be worth winning 
must be won by Americans, this confession must have 



YORKTOWN 495 

brought exceeding great bitterness of soul. It casts a 
flood of light on the darkness and doubt and peril of that 
unhappy time when the new year of 1 781 was just begin- 
ning and the American Revolution was dragging and 
grounding on the shoals of broken finances and a helpless 
Government. 

Fortunately for America, the sole dependence of the 
Revolution was not upon Congress. Social efficiency, 
expressed in civil government, had broken down wofully 
under the long stress of war, waged by weak and inco- 
herent States against a powerful and centralized empire. 
But when organized society failed, the spirit of individual 
enterprise, so strong in this new land, stepped in and took 
up the burden as best it might, very manfully and ener- 
getically struggling with a task beyond its powers, but 
still capable of at least some partial solution. This was 
what happened now in Philadelphia. Robert Morris, 
born in England, and coming to this country as a boy, 
had raised himself from poverty to wealth, and was a rich 
merchant in the Quaker town. He had given himself to 
his adopted country, and was a patriotic, energetic man, 
with strong faith in the American cause, and great con- 
fidence in Washington. Congress had undertaken to 
establish certain executive departments with single heads 
to take the place of their own committees — a gleam of 
practical sense in the midst of much vain talk and resolv- 
ing. In December, 1780, they made Morris Superin- 
tendent of Finances, a dreary office where there were 
demands to be met and constant outgo, with but little 
or nothing to come in, and no means of imposing taxes 
or enforcing their collection. Nevertheless Morris took 
the office and faced the situation bravely. He at once 



496 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

organized a bank, to which he subscribed largely himself, 
and this gave the country some intelligent machinery for 
financial operations. With him in his heavy task was 
associated Gouverneur Morris, of the old New York 
family of that name, no relation in blood to Robert, but 
like him in patriotism and energy, possessed of high and 
indomitable courage and keen wit, with a good deal of 
hearty contempt in his soul for the blundering and the 
ineffective people of this world, of whom at that moment, 
and in that place, he had examples enough before him. It 
was Gouverneur Morris who wrote " Finance. Ah, my 
friend, all that is left of the American Revolution grounds 
there." In this temper these two men took hold of what 
by courtesy was called the Treasury of the Confederation. 
They got some order out of the existing confusion. That 
in itself was much. But they did even more. By strain- 
ing their own credit, by the bank, by foreign loans, by one 
expedient after another they in part effected what the Gov- 
ernment ought to have done, and they raised some money. 
It was a mighty assistance to Washington, and one can im- 
agine the relief it must have been to have men to deal with 
who were trying, however imperfectly, to get something 
real done instead of contenting themselves with debates 
and resolutions, and other well-meant nothings, when the 
times cried loudly and imperatively for deeds, not words, 
lie was enabled at last, feeble as the relief was, to get 
something also, in a military way, and it was none too 
soon, for the war, which had died down to nothing in the 
North, was beginning to flame up in a new quarter. 

When Greene made his great move, and marched 
South, striking in between the forces under Rawdon and 
tin' main army under Cornwallis, he knew very well that 



YORKTOWN 



49/ 





one of two things must happen, and this choice, which he 
forced upon his antagonist, is one of his chief claims to 
distinction as a soldier. 
Cornwallis was obliged either 
to follow Greene, in which 
case his campaign was con- 
fined to the southern extrem- 
ity of the American Colo- 
nics, was an obvious failure, 
and ceased at once to be 
formidable, or else he must 
leave Rawdon to his fate 
with Greene, and press on 
toward the North, as he 
originally intended. Neither 
course was pleasant, and it 
was not intended that either 
should be, but he chose, probably wisely, and as Greene 
anticipated, the latter alternative. By so doing he left 
Greene a free hand to redeem the Southern States, but 
he entered himself upon the populous and rich State 
of Virginia, which was quite undefended, and which, un- 
touched, had been a strong resource and support to the 
general cause of the Revolution. It is true that every 
step of his advance brought him nearer, as Greene well 
knew, to the main continental army under Washington, 
but this seemed to Cornwallis a remote danger, if he 
thought of it at all. He was encouraged by the plaudits 
and favor of the Ministry, who praised his work in the 
South, and held him up as the one thoroughly successful 
ofeneral. Clinton, of course, as Cornwallis thought, would 
hold Washington where he was, the Ministry would back 



CHARLES, EARL COR.VU'A LLIS. 

■ an engraving by F. Haward, published in 1784. 



498 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

him up, and he would pass from the disagreeable work of 
failing to catch or defeat Greene, to the agreeable business 
of sweeping through Virginia, and breaking the Con- 
federation in twain at a vital point. 

He was, however, not the first in the new field. Clin- 
ton, in his inert way, had already cast his eyes in that direc- 
tion, and, in 1779, had sent one of his useless expeditions 
to raid and plunder, and return without results, which was 
apparently his permanent theory of the way in which a war 
of conquest should be conducted. The next year he sent 
Leslie, who was to cut off supplies from the American 
army in the South, make a strong diversion in this way, 
and thus co-operate with and help Cornwallis. Unfortu- 
nately, the men from across the mountains inconsider- 
ately came over just at that time, fought the battle of 
King's Mountain, and compelled Leslie to withdraw at 
once with his fleet and army, and go directly to the sup- 
port and reinforcement of Cornwallis. Now, again stung 
into action by the praises which the Ministry heaped 
on Cornwallis, and spurred by jealousy, he determined to 
be beforehand with his younger and more successful rival, 
and sent another of his pet expeditions, strong enough to 
rob and burn and to defeat small parties of militia, but too 
weak to conquer or hold the country. This third expedi- 
tion was entrusted to Arnold, whose treason had in nowise 
diminished his activity, and who pushed rapidly on into 
the interior of Virginia. Steuben, left behind by Greene, 
wisely refused to sacrifice his little force against a very 
superior enemy, and kept on the south side of the James 
River, while Arnold pressed rapidly forward to Rich- 
mond. His march was practically unimpeded, for Vir- 
ginia had been generously giving men and supplies to the 



YORKTOWN 499 

Southern campaign, and there were no suitable prepara- 
tions for her own defence. Jefferson, now Governor, on 
the arrival of the enemy did some violent ridings to and 
fro, tried, in a rather hysterical way, to do the work of 
weeks in a few hours, and quite naturally failed. Arnold, 
moving fast, offered, with his characteristic mercantile 
spirit, to spare Richmond if he could be allowed to take 
off the stores of tobacco. This was refused, and he then 
burned houses, destroyed all the property he could, and 
after failing to capture the arms at Westham, returned 
down the river to Portsmouth. Clinton's third raid was 
over, with a net result of one unlucky Governor much 
disturbed, and some houses and tobacco burned ; but his 
zeal, now fired with emulation, was not as usual content 
with this performance as sufficient for a year's campaign. 
In March he sent a fresh and strong detachment of two 
thousand men to Virginia, and a month later, another. 
The first body was led by General Phillips, who joined 
Arnold and took command of the combined forces. 

Meantime other eyes than those of Clinton had begun 
to look with interest upon Virginia. To Washington the 
raiding of Arnold in his native State was particularly odi- 
ous, and he had moreover an intense desire to capture the 
traitor, upon whom he was profoundly anxious to execute 
justice, for he was a firm believer in the law of compensa- 
tion and had no feeble tenderness about punishing crim- 
inals. With this purpose in view he detached Lafayette, 
with twelve hundred continentals, to go to Virginia in pur- 
suit of Arnold. Lafayette slipped away with his men and 
got safely and quickly to Annapolis, where he was to be 
met by the French fleet from Newport and convoyed to 
Portsmouth. All had gone as Washington had planned 



coo THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

it. Arnold, penned up at Portsmouth by the Virginia 
militia, would have fallen an easy prey to an enemy in 
control of both land and sea ; but the French fleet fell 
in with that of the British, under Arbuthnot, off the capes 
of the Chesapeake, where an action ensued. Both sides 
claimed the victory, and the result was what is usually 
described in polite historic phrase as indecisive, but the 
British won, for the French were obliged to return to 
Newport and Arbuthnot held the Chesapeake. No con- 
voy therefore for Lafayette and his men ; no capturing of 
traitors this time ; all these things quite obvious and no 
doubt very disappointing and even grievous to the young 
Frenchman, always eager for righting and glory. So he 
turned northward, thinking that he had marched many 
miles in vain. When, at the head of Elk, however, he 
was met by orders to return South and act with Greene. 
Watching Virginia, Washington had detected signs of 
events which might be crucial in their developments and 
which called up visions of possible successes so large as to 
make the capture of an escaped traitor seem trivial indeed. 
The despatch of Phillips, at the head of two thousand 
men, with a probability of more to follow, gave an im- 
portance to the situation in Virginia which it had not 
before possessed. Washington knew Clinton too well to 
suppose that that gallant gentleman had any comprehen- 
sive or far-reaching plan in sending a series of detach- 
ments to the Chesapeake, or that there was, in the mind 
of the British general, any intention beyond that of many 
other similar expeditions previously projected into space 
apparently just for luck. But he also knew that these 
successive detachments meant, as a matter of course, the 
accumulation of a considerable mass of men in Virginia. 



YORKTOWN 501 

Quite clear it was also that Cornwallis, to the southward, 
was not far from the Virginia line and was heading: 
northward. Washington had not yet heard of the battle 
of Guilford, or of the bold movement by which Greene 
had thrust himself between the two British divisions and 
was earning the war to the South. But it was plain to 
him that the chances all favored the advance of Corn- 
wallis to the North, and his consequent junction with 
Clinton's detachments. That meant a strong army in 
Virginia. If Greene was at the heels of Cornwallis, then 
he must be strengthened. If he was not, then arrange- 
ments must be made to reach the latter from the North. 
An army of the enemy was gathering in Virginia so large 
as to not merely threaten the country at a central point, 
but to offer probably an opportunity, if rightly managed, 
to win a victory as decisive as that of Saratoga. There 
was a strong indication that the vital point in the war 
might suddenly shift to Virginia, and preparation there- 
fore must be made so that either he himself or Greene 
might be in a position to take advantage of it. It was 
only a chance as yet, but it was a great possibility, and 
tentative movements must be begun in order to seize the 
opportunity if it really came. Hence the orders to Lafa- 
yette. Hence, later further orders to Wayne to join Lafa- 
yette with some of the Pennsylvania line, and later still, 
much larger and more conclusive undertakings as the pos- 
sibilities of the winter of 1781 ripened into certainty. 

Lafavette was well chosen to do the work immediately 
in hand, for he was brave, generous, energetic, and quick 
in movement. By pledging his own credit he obtained 
shoes and clothes in Baltimore for his troops, and then 
making a forced march he reached Richmond and took 



502 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

possession of the city. He was only just in time, a mere 
twenty-four hours ahead of the enemy, but still he was in 
time. Phillips and Arnold, marching up the river, had 
forced Steuben to retreat from Blandford, and pressing on 
arrived at Richmond too late. Lafavette was there, too 
strongly posted to be attacked, and the British fell back 
down the river, ascending again and rcoccupying Peters- 
burg on the receipt of news that Cornwallis was coming. 
On May 13th Phillips died, and Arnold, being in com- 
mand, undertook to open a correspondence with Lafa- 
yette. The young Frenchman refused to have anything 
to do with him on the unpleasant ground that he was a 
traitor, which exasperated Arnold, who began to threaten 
ugly reprisals, when Cornwallis appeared, and having no 
liking for the betrayer of West Point, sent him back to New 
York. Thence Arnold went on one more plundering, 
burning raid into Connecticut, which ended with the capt- 
ure and destruction of New London and the murder of 
Colonel Ledyard and seventy-three of his soldiers after 
they had surrendered. With this appropriate exploit per- 
formed bv the troops under his command, Arnold dis- 
appeared for the rest of his life from the history which he 
had soiled and blackened, and served in obscurity the king 
who had bought him. 

Cornwallis, rid of Arnold and with seven thousand men 
now under his command, set himself at once to cut off 
Lafayette and prevent his junction with Wayne, who, af- 
ter many delays, was now coming to Virginia, in obedience 
to Washington's orders. Lafavette, however, had not been 
brought up in the school of Washington and Greene in 
vain. Holding his little- army well in hand, he moved with 
such judgment and rapidity that he entirely evaded Corn- 



YORKTOWN 



503 



wallis and effected his junction successfully with Wayne at 
a point on the Rapidan. While he was thus escaping, the 
British general, baffled in his main object, sent out two 
expeditions, one under Simcoe and one under Tarleton. 
The first forced Steuben, who thought 'the main army was 
upon him, to retire in haste and leave the stores which he 
was guarding at the Point of Fork to the enemy. The 



- ! 




HALL IN CARTER'S GROVE, AN OLD COLONIAL MANSION ON THE JAMES 

RIVER. 

The balustrade still bears deep nits made by the sabres of Tarleton's troopers when the land was raided by 
them on their way to Yorktown. 

second was intended to capture the State officers of Vir- 
ginia, who, warned in time, made good their escape. Jef- 
ferson had but short notice, only five minutes, tradition 
says, but enough to get upon his horse and gallop away to 
the woods and into the hills. Net results of all this again 
is easily stated, and consisted of some military stores and 
one runaway Governor. The two expeditions are quite 
Clintonian in conception, execution, and outcome, and 
show how far the inert dulness which thought to conquer 



504 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



a continent by raids had come to reign supreme in the Brit- 
ish military mind. 

While Cornwallis was thus idly beating the air with 
parties of horse and foot, scattering about the country 
to capture stores and catch civil officers, Lafayette, 
strengthened by the contingent under Wayne, marched 




THE HOME OF THE PRESIDENT OF WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE AT 

1 1 TL L. I A MS B ERG, VA. 

Used by Cornwallis as his head-quarters in the campaign preceding Yorktoun. 



down against the main British army. By a quick 
movement he got between Cornwallis and the stores 
at Richmond, and the former then began to retire down 
the river with the Americans following him. By the 
end of June the British were at Williamsburg. Then 
came an indecisive skirmish between detachments under 
Simcoe on the one side and Butler, sent out by Lafayette, 
on the other. As the enemy continued to fall back toward 



YORKTOWN 505 

the coast Lafayette determined to give them battle at the 
crossing; of the James and advanced to Green Spring 
where Wayne attacked with his usual impetuosity, and 
also, as was likewise not unusual with him, a little too 
soon. He supposed that he had only a detachment to deal 
with, when, as a matter of fact, the main body of the en- 
emy was still on the north side and in his immediate front. 
Once engaged, however, Wayne faced his difficulties and 
his very superior foe with his usual dash and daring and 
charged the British line. Lafayette came gallantly to his 
support, and between them they checked the enemy and 
brought their army off in safety from a most perilous situ- 
ation. The American loss was 118 in killed, wounded, 
and missing ; the British lost in killed and wounded 75. 
It was a sharp and well-fought action, and despite the mis- 
take at the beginning, the army was handled with skill and 
courage by the American generals. After the battle Lafa- 
yette withdrew to Malvern, destined to a much greater fame 
and much harder fighting in a then distant future, and 
there rested his men. Cornwallis, on his side, continued 
his retreat to the coast, sent out Tarleton on the conven- 
tional raid into Bedford County, which had the conventional 
results in fire and destruction, withdrew to Portsmouth, 
and thence betook himself, on August 1st, to Yorktown, 
where, by the 9th, he had all his army assembled about him, 
and where he be^an to intrench himself and build stroiis" 
works of defence. 

It was the first week in August when Cornwallis thus 
took possession of Yorktown and Gloucester. His north- 
ern movement had failed. He had left the Carolinas open 
to Greene and could not return thither. Clinton's jealousy 
and vacillation had weakened his force, and now had the 



5o5 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

solid result of preventing his reinforcement. That Corn- 
wallis was uneasy is clear, although how fully he under- 
stood the perils of his own position cannot now be ab- 
solutely determined. But if he himself did not measure 
accurately his own conditions, there was an opponent far 
away to the North who perfectly apprehended both the 
situation and all its possibilities. 

To Washington it had been perfectly clear for many 
months, that within the year now passing into summer a 
decisive blow must be struck or the Revolution, if it did 
not go hopelessly to pieces, would certainly fail of complete 
and true success. The conditions of his problem, from 
the military point of view, were plain. With the allied 
French and his own army he must strike the English 
and destroy one of their principal armies by bringing an 
overwhelming superiority of numbers to bear at the point 
of contact. To do this the command of the sea was vitally 
necessary, if only for a short time, and that command could 
be had only through the French fleet. As the year i 780 
was closing Washington considered carefully a plan for 
combining with the Spaniards in the seizure of Florida, 
and thence advancing through Georgia and taking the 
British forces, against which Greene was operating, in the 
rear. Rochambeau objected, and the plan is now of inter- 
est merely as showing how Washington was scanning the 
whole country and devising every possible plan to meet 
the emergency and deal the fatal blow. His time was 
limited, short even, and he knew it. If the Revolution 
was to be won, as he wanted to win it, it must be done 
within the twelvemonth, and he meant that it should be. 
For this reason every possible scheme was considered, so 
that no chance should slip by. 



YORKTOWN 



507 




The Florida plan came to nothing;. Then mutiny 
reared its head ; ugly, threatening, but not without use in 
frightening Congress and in 
leading to some displays of 
energy. With the mutinies put 
down, Congress awakened and 
Robert Morris fighting the 
financial difficulties, the spring 
opened a little more brightly 
in matters domestic. Then in 
May came news of De Barras 
with a French squadron at 
Newport, six hundred more 
men for De Rochambeau, and, 
what was far more important, 
sure tidings of the sailing of a 
powerful fleet under De Grasse 
to the West Indies. The factors in Washington's problem 
were orettino: nearer, the instruments he must use were 
coming within reach of his hand. How was it going to 
be possible to bring them all together and produce the 
great result ? 

The first real step was a consultation with De Rocham- 
beau at Wethersfield in Connecticut on May 21st. There 
it was decided to move on New York if De Grasse would 
co-operate. There, too, was the plan of moving South 
against Cornwallis discussed. Hence a claim from De 
Rochambeau that the Virginia campaign was his idea, and 
eagerness on the part of the modern antiquarian, to whom 
any view is distasteful if it is accepted, to prove that the 
French General thought of Virginia and not Washington. 
Very idle arguing and conjecturing all this. Washington 



COMPTE DE ROCHAMBEAU. 
From .1 portrait by C. II'. Peale, ij8i. 



5oS THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

had been thinking not only of Virginia long before De 
Rochambeau knew aught about it, but of Florida too, and 
New York. He was thinking of every place where there 
was an English army, and of every combination which 
might result in the complete destruction of one of them. 
He was wedded to no plan, and to no one place. The 
point at which he could combine land and sea power was 
the only point at which he aimed, and those conditions 
once fulfilled his campaign was made for him. Naturally 
he thought first of New York, which he had been watch- 
ing so long, and where the principal hostile army was 
posted. Perhaps he could get the fleet there, and then the 
work would be done. Perhaps he could not, and then 
Clinton, threatened by the allied forces, would be at least 
debarred by his presence from helping Cornwallis. 

So, on June 18th, the French left Rhode Island and 
joined Washington. On July 2d an attack was attempted 
on the forts on the upper end of Manhattan Island and 
failed. Then followed a reconnoissance in force with a 
distinct result of alarming Clinton to such extent that 
no more men were sent to Virginia, and orders went in- 
stead to recall troops already there. It was not in vain, 
therefore, that the first movement had been made against 
New York, and the importance of the effect on Clin- 
ton soon became manifest, for a great alteration was at 
hand in the conditions of the campaign. The change 
came in a note from De Grasse stating that he would 
enter the Chesapeake with a view to a combination 
against Cornwallis, as suggested by De Rochambeau. He 
said his time would be short ; that he could not remain 
long on the coast. The great moment had come, brief, 
fleeting, to be seized at all hazards. Washington did not 



YORKTOWN 509 

hesitate. New York was naturally the object first in his 
mind, evidently the most important place in America, that 
which he had hemmed in so long in order to prevent the 
movement up the Hudson. Clinton and New York were 
worth more than Corawallis in a post of no value, but he 
could not get De Grasse to New York, the fleet was essen- 
tial and Cornvvallis would do. 

The probable need of going South had been plain to 
Washington's mind some time before the decisive letter 
had come from De Grasse. On August 2d he had written 
that the arrival of troops made New York perhaps imprac- 
ticable, and that it might be necessary to go South, thus 
preparing Congress for the contingency daily growing into 
a certainty. After it was known that De Grasse had 
turned finally to the Chesapeake no time was lost. Then 
it was that Washington began to move, and that letters 
went to the New England governors pleading for troops 
with an earnestness beyond even that which he was wont to 
use. So too went demands for money to Robert Morris, 
who manfully did his best, which was but little, but still 
something. Slender funds, no proper means of transpor- 
tation, apathetic States, and a central Government almost to- 
tally impotent, were harsh conditions for a general obliged 
to carry troops over three hundred miles to the southward, 
and very quickly, too, if he was to win his prize. Then, 
too, in another direction the weakness of human nature 
seemed likely to wound mortally the great scheme at its 
most vital point. De Barras, at Boston, with the French 
squadron assigned regularly to the American station, was 
an important factor in the situation. But De Barras, the 
senior in rank, was nettled by his junior, De Grasse, having 
command of the great fleet fresh from France. His orders 



5io 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 



gave him an independent command, and he made up his 
mind to sail away to the northward, and leave De Grasse 
unassisted. This was something- to be prevented at all 
hazards, and a very skilfully drawn and urgent letter went 
on signed by both Washington and De Rochambeau. 







~4ijk 



■.■_. 





Sc 6 



YORK RIVER, SEEN FROM THE INNER BRITISH WORKS, AND LOOKING 
TOWARD GLOUCESTER POINT. 



The map sho 



of the French and British ships at the ti 



of the siege. 



The appeal was successful, De Barras relented, yielded per- 
sonal feelings to the good of the cause, and sailed shortly 
after from Newport with a siege-train and tools, taking a 
wide sweep to avoid the British. 

Thus one great peril was passed. De Barras mollified 
and secured, Washington turned his whole attention to 
making a rapid march to the South. His movements 



YORKTOWN 5n 

about New York, although not carried out to their original 
conclusion, were by no means wasted. They served ad- 
mirably to annoy Clinton, fill him with alarm, and cause 
him not only to withhold reinforcements from Cornwallis, 
but aided by his personal jealousy they led him to order 
more troops back from Virginia. Washington thus turned 
his attack on New York into a feint, and used it as the first 
step for the real movement on Virginia. So secretly did 
he do it that even his own army was in the dark, and Clin- 
ton was completely deceived. Washington gathered pro- 
visions and forage as if for prolonged operations against 
New York, erected ovens even, and gave a perfect appear- 
ance of a protracted campaign. Heath was then left in 
command of the troops that were to remain and check the 
British in New York. Then, on August 19th the allied 
forces started for the South. They began as if about to 
make an attack on Staten Island, fixed in this way the 
attention of the enemy, and drew the whole army safely 
and unopposed across the Hudson and into New Jersey. 
On September 2d the Americans were marching through 
Philadelphia, followed soon after by the French, and the 
deceived Clinton awoke at last to the fact that Washington 
had slipped by him and was away out of reach and going 
straight to Yorktown. On September 8th the allied armies 
were united at the Head of Elk waiting for the fleet. 

In due time the fleet came, and with it mastership 
of the sea, but not without hindrances very happily over- 
come. The British this time made the mistake, unusual 
with them in naval campaigns, of not concentrating their 
fleet and holding control of the sea. Rodney, instead of 
pursuing De Grasse with his entire force, sent Hood to 
the North with only fourteen ships to join Admiral Graves 



512 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 




PKESEXT APPEARANCE OF THE BRITISH JN- 
TRENCHMENT AT YORKTOWN, WITH A 
MAP SHOWING THE POSITION OF THE 
FRENCH AND AMERICAN TROOPS. 

The position of the works shown in the drawing extends from A 

to B on the uiaf. 



at New York. Hood brought the 
first news of the arrival of De 
Grasse, and Clinton, convinced at 
last that the danger was really in 
Virginia, reluctantly allowed Graves to sail to the South. 
Missing De Barras, whom they had hoped to intercept, 
they kept on to the Chesapeake. De Grasse, who was 
then landing additional troops under St. Simon to go 
to the aid of Lafayette, although somewhat weakened, 
stood out as soon as the English appeared, and, on Sep- 
tember 5th, gave them battle just as Washington and 
the allies were hurrying southward from Philadelphia. 
This action also was called indecisive, but the victory this 
time was with the French. The English burned one dis- 
abled frigate, and in the course of five days sailed back to 
New York, while the French, returning to Lynn Haven 
Bay, found De Barras safe with his transports and siege- 



YORKTOWN 5i3 

train. They were masters of the Chesapeake. At the 
supreme moment the sea-power was in the hands of the 
allies, and Washington's one essential condition of com- 
plete triumph, so prayed and longed for in the weary years 
gone by, was at last fulfilled. The prize of victory had 
been won in the indecisive action by England's failure to 
concentrate her fleet, by Rodney's failure to rise to Nelson's 
level, and follow and fight the main force of the enemy 
wherever it went. 

The really crucial moment had been passed, but there 
were still many trials, many obstacles to be overcome, and 
one great peril to be put aside and escaped. It was hard 
work to get transports, but in some fashion Washington 
gathered them and had assistance from the French fleet. 
Nowhere else, indeed, did it seem possible to get help, for 
Congress selected this particular moment, the eve of a great 
and decisive battle, to consider the question of reducing 
the army. One stands in silent amazement before such an 
exhibition of human fatuity, and the student gathers from 
it an impression of the utterly worn out and unnerved 
state of the central Government which nothing else could 
give. The army luckily was not reduced, but a legislative 
body which at such a time could even contemplate such a 
step was not likely to be of much help to a fighting soldier 
struggling manfully in a sea of troubles. Congress did not 
actually destroy its army in the presence of the foe, and 
that is all that can be said, and the statement is pitiful 
enough. The State Governments were little better, but 
they were not wholly negative ; they made some efforts, 
slow and feeble, but still efforts to aid the General and his 
army. It is not easy to know just how the result was at- 
tained, but in some way or other Washington drove through 



5 '4 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

his entanglements, gathered transports here, there, and 
everywhere, and espeeially from De Barms, whom lie had 
himself brought to the Chesapeake, and finally got the 
allied forces afloat and on the way to Yorktown. Then he 
turned off with De Rochambeau and went to Mount Ver- 
non to see for a day the well-loved spot, to look out over 
the broad river after a separation of six years, to recall all 
that had passed, perhaps to dream for a moment of the 
final and complete victory which he saw at last within his 
grasp. 

Whatever his thoughts, he did not linger long. In two 
days he was again on his way, and on the i 7th was on the 
Yille de Paris congratulating De Grasse on his victory and 
making plans for the siege. Now at the last moment came 
a great peril which threatened to wreck everything. Like 
D'Estaing at Savannah, De Grasse had a sudden cold fit 
because much alarmed at news of British reinforcements, 
and began to reflect on the advancing season, the gales 
coming from the West Indies, and other unpleasant possi- 
bilities. So he made up his mind that he could not fight 
in the bay, and announced firmly that he must depart at 
once with his fleet and would leave only two ships for the 
siege. All the hopeful plans began to totter, failure and 
ruin seemed drawing near. More diplomacy was needed ; 
more of the appeals which had brought De Barras from 
Boston. So Washington wrote another of his strong 
letters of remonstrance and argument, and zealously sup- 
ported by Lafayette, prevailed. "A great mind," wrote 
Washington to De Grasse, "knows how to make a per- 
sonal sacrifice to secure an important general good," and 
the line compliment had its effect. It may not have been 
wholly sincere as to the "great mind," but the gratitude it 



YORKTOWN 



5i5 



expressed came from the heart of the chief whose plans 
seemed about to fall in chaos and ruin. 

So the last great danger-point was passed and, on Sep- 
tember 26th, the troops landed at Williamsburg, and, on 
the 28th, marched on Yorktown. There they found Corn- 
vvallis occupying an intrenched camp outside the town. 




m:w£ 



fir , 3 35j,3Sjw»«»)«5v^-.,. 









THE HOME OF CHANCELLOR 
WYTHE AT WILLIAMSBURG, 
WHERE WASHINGTON STOPPED 

ON HIS WAY TO THE SIEGE OF 
YORKTOWN. 



Beyond is the old Bruton Parish Church, built about 1:1 .-. 



The next day Washington extended his lines with the 
Americans on the right, and Cornwallis, seeing that he was 
outflanked, withdrew to the town and the inner line of de- 
fences. The next day the allies marched in and took pos- 
session of the abandoned works. This shut Cornwallis in 
completely, as on the Gloucester side the neck was occu- 
pied by the Virginia militia under Weedon and the French 
cavalry under the Due de Lauzun, a typical French noble, 



516 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

a man of camps and courts, of many adventures both in 
love and war, and altogether a very brilliant figure against 
the sober background of the American army. Here, when 
their troops were posted, a sally was attempted by Tarleton 
and his legion. Lauzun was out one morning with a small 
force and stopped at a house where, according to his uni- 
versal habit, he found the hostess a very pretty woman, a 
fact he had time to note before she told him that Tarleton 
had just been there and had expressed a strong desire " to 
shake hands with the French Duke." This was enough 
for Lauzun, who at once left his pretty woman and riding 
forward, ran into the English cavalry. Tarleton, true to 
his word, made for the Duke at once, who was quite ready 
to receive him, but a lancer riding against Tarleton flung 
him to the ground and the French seeing their leader in 
danger, charged briskly and gayly upon the British, who 
had come up in some confusion, and scattered them in 
all directions. Tarleton lost his horse but managed to 
escape himself, and so passed off the American stage 
leaving a memory of some brilliant feats sullied by many 
cruelties and the massacre of prisoners. 

It was not a very serious attempt, this wild dash of 
Tarleton, but it was the only sally actually undertaken be- 
fore affairs were desperate, and served to show how hope- 
less the British position had become. Nothing remained, 
indeed, but to draw the net which had been so skilfully 
and successfully thrown over Cornwallis. On October 6th 
the heavy guns arrived, De Grasse consented to stay until 
November ist, and the siege was driven forward rapidly. 
On the same day the first parallel was opened within three 
hundred yards of the British lines. On the ;th and 8th the 
French opened fire on the left, and the Americans on the 



YORKTOWN 



519 



right, and the British were forced hack from an outlying 
redoubt. The fire was continued on the 9th, and the earth- 
works of the enemy suffered severely. On the 10th more 
guns and a heavier tire, and some of the British ships were 
destroyed by the French fleet. On the 11th the second 
parallel was opened with slight loss and Cornwallis wrote 
to Clinton that his situation was desperate, that he was 
losing men fast, and that the enemy were closing in upon 
him. So the work went on for two days, more heavy fir- 
ing on one side, crumbling defences and falling men on the 
other, a brave struggle against fate. On the 14th Wash- 
ington decided that the two advanced redoubts on the 
British left were practicable and ordered an assault. The 
American light infantry under Lafayette were given the 
redoubt nearest the river, while the other was assigned 
to the regiments of Auvergne and Deux Ponts and the 
Grenadiers of Gatinois, all under the Baron de Viomenil. 
Alexander Hamilton led the main attack for the Amer- 
icans, while Laurens commanded on the flank. Hamilton 
dashed forward with his accustomed impetuosity, leading 
his men, who had unloaded muskets and trusted wholly 
to the bayonet. On they went over the abatis, over the 
obstacles and up the parapet, and in ten minutes they had 
the redoubt. The Americans lost 42 in killed and wounded, 
the British, who surrendered as soon as their assailants 
poured over the parapet, 8 killed. 

The French had a more serious task. The redoubt 
assigned to them contained more men and was more stub- 
bornly defended. They removed the obstructions under 
fire, moved steadily forward, and after half an hour's hard 
fiehtine the redoubt was theirs. Count de Damas, Che- 
valier de Lameth, and the Count de Deux Ponts were all 



5_'0 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 







THE HOUSE OE GOVERNOR NELSON A T YORKTOWN. 



Nelson was :n command of the Virginia troops at Yorktown. and ordered his own house to be 
heavily bombarded, as it was occupied by < ormuallis and his staff at tlu- time. 



wounded ; it was a well-delivered assault, not without seri- 
ous loss, and the regiment of Auvergne, for its share in 
the day's work, recovered from the King its proud title of 
" Auvergne sans tache." 

The redoubts taken in such prompt and brilliant fashion 
were at once included in the American line, and Cornwallis 
saw the bitter end coming very near indeed. On the 1 6th 
he ordered a sortie under Colonel Abercrombie, which was 
made with great gallantry, but all in vain. The British 
forced their way into a redoubt held by the French only 
to be driven out again with heavy loss. Then Cornwallis 



YORKTOWN 



521 



moved part of his troops to Gloucester to try to escape 
by water. The attempt, hopeless in any event, was com- 
pletely frustrated by a storm, and on the next day the 
men were brought back. All was over now, and Corn- 
vvallis, with his ammunition nearly exhausted, his works 
shattered, and his army exposed to a destructive lire, 
offered to surrender. On the 18th the articles were 
signed. They were the same as those imposed upon the 
Americans at Charleston when Lincoln surrendered, and 
were complete. Between 8,000 and 9,000 men constituted 
the land forces, and these, with their guns, standards, and 
military chests, went to the Americans. Four ships, 30 
transports, 15 galleys, and some small craft, with between 
800 and 900 officers and seamen went to the French. The 
besiegers had lost 75 killed and 199 wounded; the British 
156 killed, 326 wounded, and 70 missing. It was a final 
and complete result, very characteristic of the man who 




THE MOORE HOUSE, IN WHICH THE CAPITULATION WAS SIGNED. 



522 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

had planned it. This time all his conditions had been 
fulfilled and the outcome was inevitable. The British 
had no chance from the beginning. They were outnum- 
bered and held in an iron grasp, froth by land and sea. 
Theirs was the gallant struggle against fate which brave 
men make, and they went down before a plan which left 
nothing to chance and a force which afforded no loophole 
for escape. Sir Henry Clinton arrived off the Capes on 
the 24th with a fleet and reinforcements, heard the news 
and returned to New York, a closing performance very 
characteristic of English generalship in the American war. 
He was too late, and he was trying to play the game with 
an opponent who was never too late and who never for- 
gave or overlooked mistakes made by his enemies. Six 
years had taught Washington much and Sir Henry Clin- 
ton nothing, so the great soldier triumphed over the physi- 
cally brave gentleman of good family, who, ignorant of 
the conditions with which he had to deal, had seen his 
men slaughtered at Bunker Hill, ami still despising his 
opponents, had arrived too late to save a British army 
from surrender at Yorktown. There is much room for 
reflection here on the vast advantage possessed by the man 
of veracious mind and clear intelligence, who looks facts 
steadily in the face and meets them unflinchingly, be they 
ugly or fair to see. This was perhaps the greatest among 
the many great qualities of George Washington, and in it 
we may find an explanation of the military career which 
began in the capture of Boston and closed in the trenches 
of Yorktown. 

So it all ended, and nothing remained but the forms 
and ceremonies so dear to the heart of man on great and 
small occasions alike. The 19th of October was the day 



YORKTOWN 525 

fixed for the performance of these functions so agreeable 
for one side, so painful to the other. At noon on that 
day the two redoubts on the left were surrendered, and 
the Americans marched into one and the French into the 
other. At one o'clock the redoubts on the Gloucester 
side were given up. At two the garrison of Yorktown 
marched out ; at three the cavalry and light troops from 



■•• '/.;V,v,;...T ^L~:~-'.- . ■ ■ 



YORKTOWN, 1833, FROM THE FIELD OF ITS SURRENDER BY LORD CORN 
WALLIS (OCTOBER iq, 17S1). RESIDENCE OF GOVERNOR NELSON ON 
THE EXTREME LEFT OF THE PICTURE. 

From an old print, after the drawing by John C, Chapman, made i)i 1833; now i>t the possession of Senator Lodge. 

the Gloucester side. An hour later General O'Hara, in 
the absence of Lord Cornwallis, who kept his tent on the 
plea of illness, apologized to Washington for his chief's 
failure to appear and handed his sword to General Lincoln. 
Then the British troops, in new uniforms, moving steadily 
and finely, as if on parade, marched between the French 
and the American lines, piled their arms, and returned to 
their camps prisoners of war, to be dispersed and held in 
different States. 



526 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

It was all very quietly done after the fashion of the 
men of English race, and with the good manners of the 
Frenchman. Yet it was a very memorable scene, full of 
meaning, not only to the actors, but to the world, and big 
with a future of which the men ranked there together in 
the fields of Virginia, their arms gleaming in the autumn 
sun, little dreamed. 

It had been stipulated by the lovers of forms and cere- 
monies that when the great moment came the bands of 
the beaten army should play a British air. So on they 
marched between the silent ranks of the conquerors, the 
music sounding to the air well known then of " The 
World Turned Upside Down." The tune probably ex- 
pressed very accurately the feelings of the men engaged 
in the unhappy business of laying down their arms that 
October afternoon. Their little world had indeed been 
turned upside down, and they were the helpless prisoners 
of men of their own race whom they had seen fit to ignore 
and despise. But that surrender at Yorktown reached far 
beyond the little circle of those engaged in it. It meant 
that the American Revolution had come to success. On 
one side were ranked the men of the soil who had come 
out victors in the long fight. Over their heads fluttered 
a new flag which had earned its right to live, and was the 
emblem of a new nation born into the world. A very 
great event. But there was a still deeper meaning behind 
that flag and that nation. They were the outward and 
visible signs of the momentous fact that an armed people 
had won their light, set aside old svstems, and resolved to 
govern themselves. Over against the American line were 
ranked the ordered troops of Louis XVI. Above them 
floated the white flag and the lilies of France. They had 



YORK TOWN 



527 



helped a people in arms to east out kingly rule, and in a 
few years they, too, would be themselves a people in arms 
against all Europe, and against all kings. The lilies would 
have withered, the white flag would be gone, and in its 
place the three colors of the American Republic would 
begin the march which was to end only at Moscow. Very 
significant was Yorktown to England, for it was the break- 
ing of the British Empire. Very significant to the thir- 
teen little States thus set forward on the hard road which 
was to lead them to a nation's place, and to possibilities 
most significant to all mankind, for it meant that the new 
force of democracy had won its first great battle. The 
movement which had begun at Philadelphia had marched 
to some purpose. The drum-beat, faintly heard at Con- 
cord, was sounding very loudly now to the ears of a still 
inattentive world upon the plains of Yorktown. 




THE PRINCIPAL STREET IN YORKTOWN. 
In the distance is the monument erected in jSSi to commemorate the surrender. 



CHAPTER XX 

HOW PEACE WAS MADE 

THE deeper meanings of Yorktown, shining out very 
plainly now after more than a century has come 
and gone, were quite hidden at the moment ; but 
the immediate effects were sufficient even then to fill the 
minds of men both in the Old World and in the New. 
The tidings carried by Lauzun, the hard-fighting, amorous 
Duke, crossed the Atlantic in the surprisingly short time 
of twenty-two days, and were at Versailles on November 
i g, 1 78 1, with great rejoicing thereupon in the brilliant 
Court and among the people. Great satisfaction, too, it 
all was to Vergennes and to the others who had planned 
the policy now culminating so gloriously. No doubt any 
longer that the blow had gone home, and that a very fine 
revenge had been taken upon the enemy who had wrested 
Canada from France. The splendid Empire of Great 
Britain had been broken. This fact Yorktown made clear 
to all men. Not seen at all, however, in the dust of de- 
feat, was the other even more momentous fact that En£- 
land would rise stronger than ever from her Great disaster, 
and that the next fortification to crumble under the fire of 
the Yorktown guns would be the Bastile, symbol of the 
rule of one man which was to go down before the rule of 

all men. 

528 



HOW PEACE WAS MADE 5^9 

From rejoicing Paris the news echoed through Europe, 
gratifying various kings and cabinets with the misfortune 
of a rival power, but giving to their complacent minds no 
hint of the coming overthrow of sundry well-established 
thrones and empires— something to be discerned only by 
those who listened very attentively to the deeper under- 
tones then sounding solemnly among the ominous voices 
of the time. By November 25th the Paris news was in 
London, with Clinton's official report following hard upon 
it. No doubt there, at least, as to its immediate meaning. 
Lord North, the clever, humorous, good-natured man, 
seeing the right clearly and pursuing the wrong half- 
heartedly in obedience to the will of a dull master, threw 
up his hands and cried, " It is all over.'' Quite plain to 
Parliament also, when they came together two days later, 
was the message of Yorktown. A troubled address from 
the throne and the majority for the Government reduced 
to eighty-seven were the first faint signs of the coming re- 
volt. A fortnight later the majority was down to forty- 
one on the question of giving up all further attempts to 
reduce the Colonies. Then came a petition from London 
praying peace ; for London saw her commerce broken and 
scattered by the American privateers ranging now even to 
the English Channel, while ruinous rates of insurance 
weighed heavily upon every cargo sent out by her mer- 
chants. The King alone, stupid, obstinate, with all his 
instincts for being a king and even a despot in angry re- 
volt, declared that he would never assent to the separation 
of the Colonies. But poor George was beaten even if he 
had not the wit to know it, and events, relentless and ir- 
resistible, pushed him clown and passed over him. The 
effort to revive a personal monarchy in England had miser- 



53Q THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

ably failed. It had been stricken down by the English 
people in America, as it would have been crushed by the 
English people at home if the hands of the Americans had 
not been those nearest to the work. 

Rapidly now the supports about the King fell away. 
Lord George Germain, the heroic, who thought the Amer- 
icans could not fight, departed from the Cabinet. Carle- 
ton succeeded Clinton at New York, and provision was 
made for nothing but defensive warfare, now reduced to 
holding New York and a few ports in South Carolina, to 
which pitiful dimensions the British Empire in America 
south of the Lakes had at last shrunk. Under these 
circumstances the decisive stroke in Parliament could not 
be long delayed, and on February 2 2d, the birthday of 
Washington, Conway's motion against continuing the 
American war failed by only one vote. This was defeat ; 
five days later the same motion had a majority of nineteen 
and the doom of the Ministry was sealed. A brief season 
of intrigue followed, the Kino- trying to make terms with 
Rockingham, who was to come in as the head of the 
Whigs, and to shut out Fox. But the royal experiment, 
shot down at Bunker Hill and surrendered at Saratoga and 
Yorktown, had failed too completely for compromise. No 
terms could be made. On March 20th Lord North an- 
nounced that his Ministry was at an end, and Rockingham, 
shattered in health, undertook the Government and called 
members of both wings of his party to the Cabinet. One 
of these factions was headed by Charles Fox, then in the 
first flush of his splendid eloquence — passionate in his 
sympathies, earnest in his beliefs, full of noble aspirations 
and deep emotions. The chief of the other faction was 
Lord Shelburne, liberal by cultivation, cool, ambitious, 



HOW PEACE WAS MADE 



53i 



adroit, nicknamed Malagrida by his contemporaries, who 
thought his political methods Jesuitical. Agreement be- 
tween two such men was impossible, and antagonism, en- 





CJIARLES JAMES FOX. 
From mezzotint by John Gilbank, 1806. 



LORD SHELBURNE. 
Frc7n an engraving by Bartolozzi after Gainsborough, 1787. 



hanced by the offices they respectively received, broke out 
at once. Shelburne was made Secretary of State for the 
Home Department, which included the Colonies ; Fox, 
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, which included all 
the other belligerents. But if the independence of the 
Colonies was conceded in advance, then it might perhaps 
be argued that the negotiations with them passed away 
from Shelburne and into the hands of Fox. Here, at all 
events, was a very pretty situation created for the Amer- 
icans by two Secretaries of State struggling with each 
other and severally seeking to make peace with them. 
Rightly handled, the two rivals of the British Cabinet 
could be used to bid against one another, if there chanced 



532 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

to be a diplomatist opposed to them able to take advantage 
of the cards thus forced into his hands. 

Across the channel, as it happened, there was just the 
man for the conditions. Benjamin Franklin in Paris, 
watching every move in the game — as familiar with Eng- 
lish politics as any statesman in London, more astute than 
Shelburne, and as single-minded in his devotion to his 
country and in his love of freedom as Fox — saw, at a 
glance, the opportunities opening before him. Divining 
the future, he began a coirespondence with Shelburne, 
whom he knew well, before the old Ministry had actually 
fallen or the new one had been formed. With words of 
genuine desire for peace and of subtile flattery for his cor- 
respondent, he opened the negotiations with Shelburne, 
for he characteristically felt that he could deal better with 
the cunning politician of cultivated liberality than with the 
eager and earnest nature of Fox, who would serve best as 
a check and foil to the man from whom he meant to 
get the peace he wanted for America. Franklin, as it 
soon appeared, had made his first step not only shrewdly 
but correctly, for in response to his letter Shelburne 
sent Richard Oswald over to Paris to begin the negotia- 
tions. 

Congress had put the peace negotiations into the hands 
of Commissioners, Franklin, Jay, Adams, and Laurens. 
The last, captured on the high seas and now out of the 
Tower on parole, joined Adams at The Hague, where the 
latter was just concluding a negotiation successful in loans 
and recognition, and, being without faith in the readiness 
of Great Britain to make peace, was in no hurry to move. 
Jay was in Spain, so Franklin, at the outset, was left alone 
with all the threads of the tangled web in his own hands. 



HOW PEACE WAS MADE 533 

His first step was to take possession of Oswald, Lord Shel- 
burne's envoy, as soon as that gentleman arrived in Paris. 
With a line disregard for the differing jurisdictions of the 
English Secretaries of State, he took Oswald to see Ver- 
gennes and started the negotiations with France in this il- 
licit manner. Then he sent Oswald back to London with 
some notes of a conversation in which he assured Shel- 
burne that Oswald was, of all others, the agent to be em- 
ployed, which, from Franklin's point of view, was no doubt 
true. lie suggested, with pleasant audacity, that Canada 
should be ceded to the United States, and said that this 
cession would assure "a durable peace and a sweet recon- 
ciliation." The old philosopher must have allowed him- 
self to smile as he penned this sentence ; but he neverthe- 
less sent Oswald off with it, and then wrote to Jay begging 
him to come to Paris, and adding, significantly, " Spain 
has taken four years to consider whether she should treat 
with us or not. Give her forty, and let us, in the mean- 
time, mind our own business." Here was a great stroke. 
Spain was to be shut out from any share in the American 
negotiations, and Franklin had got rid of one great en- 
cumbrance. 

Then Oswald came back from London. It appeared 
that Lord Shelburne did not intend to cede Canada even 
for " a sweet reconciliation ; " but he was ready to grant 
complete independence, proposed the Penobscot as our 
Eastern boundary, and demanded security for British debts 
and for the loyalists. Then appeared on the scene Mr. 
Thomas Grenville, the representative of Mr. Fox, and the 
rebel Franklin introduced Mr. Fox's man to the French 
Minister. But Mr. Grenville came to misfortune at once. 
His proposition that the independence of America should 



534 



THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 




be granted to France was rejected by both Vergennes and 
Franklin, and Mr. Grenville found himself in need of fresh 
instructions. When his new powers came they authorized 

him to treat only with France, 
and yet were filled with a dis- 
cussion of American affairs, so 
it appeared that these new 
powers would not do either. 
Vergennes insisted on the in- 
clusion of France, while Frank- 
lin would not tell Mr. Fox's 
envoy anything about the 
American case, so that Mr. 
Grenville felt much chagrined 
and checked, and of no partic- 
ular use or effect. Franklin, 
in fact, meant to keep the ne- 
gotiations in Oswald's hands, and, although Grenville was 
valuable as a menace in the background, it was not in- 
tended that he should have any real part in the serious 
business. Franklin evidently felt that he could get more 
from Lord Shelburne's necessities than he could from the 
theories of Fox wherein events favored him, for Lord Rock- 
ingham died, Fox went out of office, and Shelburne became 
prime-minister. Franklin, with a clear field now, and know- 
ing well how frail was Shelburne's tenure of office, pro- 
ceeded to push his negotiations with Oswald as rapidly as 
possible. On July ioth he proposed the American condi- 
tions of peace. The essential irrevocable articles were full 
and complete independence, withdrawal of all British troops, 
the Mississippi as the Western boundary, the Northern and 
Eastern boundaries as they were before the Quebec Act of 



CI/ARLES GRAVIER COMTE DE 
VERGENNES. 



HOW PEACE WAS MADE 535 

1774, and freedom of fishing off Newfoundland. He re- 
fused all provisions for the security of the loyalists or of 
British debts, and suggested an article for reciprocity of 
trade. Back went Oswald to London, to return with full 
powers and an acceptance of all Franklin's terms, the priv- 
ilege of drying fish in Newfoundland being alone withheld. 
The treaty was practically made, the great lines upon which 
it was finally concluded were all agreed, and thus far 
Franklin had acted alone. He had steered clear of France 
and thrown Spain over. A few days only were needed 
and the work would have been perfected ; but now his 
colleagues appeared in Paris, difficulties arose, delays 
came, and there were serious perils before the end was 
reached. 

First came Jay, quite cured by his experience in Spain 
of his love for a triple alliance with that country and 
France, and very suspicious of all that had been done in 
Paris. He wanted various things — an acknowledgment of 
independence by Parliament, and then a proclamation under 
the great seal, either of which if insisted upon might have 
wrecked the negotiations. But Jay, on being reasoned 
with, abandoned these demands and insisted only on hav- 
ing Oswald's commission recognize the United States of 
America, which was wise, but which also brought delay in 
getting the new commission, and just then all delays were 
dangerous. Dangerous because Shelburne's days of pow- 
er were numbered, and still more perilous because it gave 
time for Spain to come upon the scene, and proceed to in- 
trigue and draw France away from the United States and 
urge upon the Americans the abandonment of the Missis- 
sippi. 

Here Jay came out with great force, and his knowl- 



536 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

edge of Spain and familiarity with Spanish treachery and 
falsehood stood him in good stead. On no account was 
the valley of the great river to be given up. Then it ap- 
peared that France was meddling with the fisheries ; and 
now Jay turned to England, convinced that it was our in- 
terest to cut clear of the continental powers. So it came 
to pass that a month later he and Franklin were again at 
work with the newly commissioned Oswald upon the treaty 
itself. Jay made the draft,- and did it well, but it was 
along the lines of Franklin's first scheme, and, while it 
added reciprocity of trade and free navigation of the 
Mississippi, the Americans still stood out on the debts and 
the loyalists. Over went the treaty to London, once more 
to come back with another commissioner, Henry Strachey, 
Oswald being thought too pliant and in need of rein- 
forcement. The new commissioner was to stand out for 
the debts and loyalists and against drying fish on New- 
foundland, while the Northeastern boundary was still left 
open. 

None of these points, however, was vital, and the trea- 
ty seemed again on the verge of completion when John 
Adams arrived, and, chancing to encounter Oswald and 
Strachey, let out that he was willing to yield on the loyal- 
ists and the debts, thus giving away Franklin's reserve, 
which he had been holding for a high price at the end. It 
was not a fortunate bit of frankness, but the negotiations 
had to go on, and John Adams proved himself a most 
valuable ally in the struggle now centring over the fisheries 
and the Maine boundary, where he was especially strong 
and peculiarly well informed. Anxious days followed, with 
much talking and proposing and counter-proposing, very 
intricate to follow out now, and confused still further by 




BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND RICHARD OSWALD DISCUSSING THE TREATY OF PEACE 

A T PA RIS. 



HOW PEACE WAS MADE 530 

another journey of Strachey to London, with the Ministry 
tottering fast to its fall, and great fear that England, in- 
spirited by Rodney's victory and the defence of Gibraltar, 
might throw the whole business overboard. A very tick- 
lish, trying time this for all concerned, but Strachey came 
back, and then there were more anxious debates. The 
Americans yielded on the loyalists and the debts, but John 
Adams made an absolute stand for the equal rights of Ameri- 
cans in the fisheries. Thereupon another visit to London 
was proposed, but Franklin checked this by saying that in 
that case the claim about the loyalists and the debts would 
be reopened. Strachey gave way under this threat, and 
was followed by Fitzherbert, who had charge of the nego- 
tiations with Spain and France, and after Laurens had put 
the black man in by the provision that the British should 
carry off no slaves, the treaty was signed on November 30, 
1782, subject to the further conclusion of a treaty between 
France and England. 

So the great work was done. There has been much 
controversy since as to who did it — a controversy, on the 
whole, rather profitless, although no doubt consoling to 
the descendants of the eminent men who set their names 
to the treaty. To each may be given his full share of 
honor. Jay's stand on the Mississippi was admirable and 
strong, and he showed great capacity in dealing with the 
crooked Spanish side of the problem ; but he made some 
unwise proposals, and came very near at one moment to 
upsetting everything by the delay which he helped to 
cause. 

John Adams was of the highest service — learned, de- 
termined, especially versed in the questions of the New 
England boundary and the fisheries, which he did more 



540 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

than anyone else to save unimpaired to America. But 
he made a dangerous admission on his arrival about loyal- 
ists and British debts, which came very near taking from 
us the powerful instrument which we then held fast in 
order to gain better terms in other directions. Neverthe- 
less, after all deductions, both Adams and Jay rendered 
high and important service to America in this great nego- 
tiation, and a service which could not have been spared or 
dispensed with. 

But there was one man about whom no deductions 
need be made, who guided the delicate and difficult work 
from the beginning, and who proved himself the great 
diplomatist of his day. This was Franklin, the maker of 
the French alliance, the great figure in the diplomacy 
which did so much to establish and bring to success the 
American Revolution. Before his colleagues arrived on 
the scene he had grasped with a sure hand all the con- 
ditions of the task before him. He it was who committ- 
ed Shelburne to the proposition of independence, played 
him off against Fox, and captured Oswald, the man into 
whose hands he determined to force the British case. He 
it was who shut out Spain and held France at arm's- 
length. 

Thus it came about that before his colleagues came the 
pieces in the great game were all in position, the cam- 
paign all laid out, and the lines drawn and fixed — the 
very lines upon which, after many weeks more of keen 
wrangling and argument, the treaty was finally made. In 
the words of Mr. Henry Adams, upon which it is impos- 
sible to improve, " Franklin, having overcome this last 
difficulty" (getting Shelburne to style us the United 
States of America), " had only to guide his impetuous 



HOW PEACE WAS MADE 541 

colleagues and prevent discord from doing harm. How 
dexterously he profited and caused his country to profit 
by the very idiosyncrasies of those colleagues with which 
he had least sympathy ; how skilfully he took advantage 
of accidents and smoothed difficulties away ; how subtle 
and keen his instincts were ; how delicate and yet how 
sure his touch ; all this is a story to which Mr. Bancroft 
has done only partial justice. Sure of England, Franklin 
calmly ignored Spain, gently threw on his colleagues the 
responsibility of dispensing with the aid of France, boldly 
violated his instructions from Congress, and negotiated a 
triumphant peace." * Spain and France marvelled to find 
themselves left outside. England, in the hands of this 
master of politics, was led, before she realized it, into giv- 
ing more than she ever intended. Adams and Jay played 
Franklin's game with the other powers without knowing 
that they did so, and rested in full belief that they made 
the peace, while the old philosopher walked out at the end 
with the treaty in his hands, entirely victorious and quite 
contented that others should have the glory so long as he 
had the result. 

The American rebels convinced the world that they 
had statesmen in Congress who could argue their case as 
ably as any Ministers in Europe. After six long years 
they had demonstrated that they could fight, and fight 
hard, and bring forth a great soldier to lead their armies. 
Now, finally, they had shown that in the field of diplo- 
macy, in a negotiation where a bitter and defeated oppo- 
nent faced them, and where suspicious allies fast cooling 
in friendship stood by their side, they could produce dip- 
lomatists able to wring from these adverse and perilous 

* North American Review, April, 1875, p. 430. 



542 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

conditions a most triumphant peace. All these perform- 
ances in statecraft, war, and diplomacy came from a 
people whom England despised and therefore lost, and 
in this wise furnish forth one of the many impressive les- 
sons which history loves to preserve and men delight to 
forget. 



CHAPTER XXI 

HOW THE WAR ENDED 

GREAT effects came from the news of Yorktown 
when the tidings spread through Europe. Very 
different were its immediate results in America, 
and not altogether pleasant to contemplate. Washington, 
wholly unmoved in purpose by his great victory, turned 
from the field, where Cornwallis had surrendered, to do 
what came next in the work of completing the Revolution. 
He wanted De Grasse to go with him to Charleston in 
order to destroy the British there and finish the Southern 
campaign out of hand. But De Grasse would do no more. 
He preferred to leave the coast, part from Washington, 
who had planned another sure victory, and take his way 
to Rodney and defeat. Having thus failed with the 
French admiral, Washington sent to Greene all the troops 
he could spare, and then started north to Philadelphia. 
Letters had preceded him urging the old advice for better 
administration and a more permanent army, just as if there 
had been no Yorktown ; and, strange to say, Congress 
fell in with his wishes, filled the departments, and tried 
to increase the army. This time the opposition and the 
feebleness appeared in the States and among the people. 
Public sentiment was relaxed, and settled down easily to 
the comfortable belief that Yorktown had decided every- 

543 



544 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

thing, and that all was over. The natural result followed 
in failure to get money or men. Washington believed 
that Vorktown had probably ended the struggle; hut he 
lived in a world of facts, not probabilities, and he saw 
many possible and existent perils. The war was not over- 
peaee was not made, and, if England held off and let the 
war drag on, American exhaustion and indifference misrht 
yet prove fatal and undo all that had been done. So when 
Washington heard that the Commons had asked the King 
to make peace, he wrote a letter to Congress warning 
them of danger and urging continued preparation. Again 
he wrote, pointing out that war was still going on ; and 
even when he knew that negotiations had actually begun, 
he still sent words of warning and appeals for preparation 
to continue the war. He produced little effect — the States 
remained inert, the war smouldered along with petty affairs 
of outposts, and still peace did not come. Fortunately, 
the neglect of Washington's sound counsels bore no evil 
fruit, for England was more deeply hurt than he dared to 
think, and the treaty was really at hand. 

But there was one subject upon which Congress failed 
to act where they could not be saved by the breaking 
down of their enemy. This was the treatment of their 
own army, and here there was no excuse to be made. A 
fear of standing armies was the avowed explanation of 
their inaction; but this fear, as they put it into practice, 
was unintelligent, while the deeper cause was their own 
feebleness, not untinged with jealousy of the men who 
had done the lighting. Hut, whatever the reasons, the 
fact remained that the soldiers were unpaid; that no pro- 
vision of any sort was made for them ; and that they 
seemed on the brink of being dismissed to their homes, in 



HOW THE WAR ENDED 545 

manv cases to want and destitution, with no compensa- 
tion hut the memory of their hardships and their victories. 
Washington was profoundly moved by the attitude and 
policy of Congress. One of the deepest emotions of his 
strong nature was love for his soldiers, for those who had 
fought with him, and with this was coupled his passionate 
hatred of injustice. His letters to those in authority were 
not only full of hot indignation, but bitter in their denun- 
ciation of a policy which would reduce the army without 
providing for the men, as they were mustered out. He 
saw, too, what Congress failed to see, that here were not 
only injustice and ingratitude, flagrant and even cruel, but 
a great and menacing danger. It is a perilous business to 
deal out injustice, suffering, and w T ant to the armed soldier, 
because the moment is sure to come when the man with 
the musket says that, if anyone is to be wronged or starved, 
it shall not be himself. What kings, Parliaments, or Con- 
gresses or legislatures refuse unjustly, human nature in the 
armed man will finally take by force ; and to this danger- 
ous frame of mind the American army was fast coming. 
Congress and the States went cheerfully along, making 
a few indefinite promises and doing nothing, while the 
mutterings and murmurs in camp began to grow louder, 
until at last they found expression in an able and adroitly 
written address, the work of John Armstrong. The 
voice of the armed man was rising clearly and distinctly 
now. It declared the sufferings and sorrows of the soldier 
and the ingratitude of Congress, and called the army to 
action and to the use of force. Thus the direct appeal 
was made. Only one man could keep words from becom- 
ing deeds, and Washington came forward and took control 
of the whole movement. He censured the address in general 



544 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

thing, and that all was over. The natural result followed 
in failure to get money or men. Washington believed 
that Yorktown had probably ended the struggle; but he 
lived in a world of facts, not probabilities, and he saw 
many possible and existent perils. The war was not over- 
peace was not made, and, if England held off and let the 
war drag on, American exhaustion and indifference might 
yet prove fatal and undo all that had been done. So when 
Washington heard that the Commons had asked the King 
to make peace, he wrote a letter to Congress warning 
them of danger and urging continued preparation. Again 
he wrote, pointing out that war was still going on ; and 
even when he knew that negotiations had actually begun, 
he still sent words of warning and appeals for preparation 
to continue the war. He produced little effect — the States 
remained inert, the war smouldered along with petty affairs 
of outposts, and still peace did not come. Fortunately, 
the neglect of Washington's sound counsels bore no evil 
fruit, for England was more deeply hurt than he dared to 
think, and the treatv was really at hand. 

But there was one subject upon which Congress failed 
to act where they could not be saved by the breaking 
down of their enemy. This was the treatment of their 
own army, and here there was no excuse to be made. A 
fear of standing armies was the avowed explanation of 
their inaction; but this fear, as they put it into practice, 
was unintelligent, while the deeper cause was their own 
feebleness, not untinged with jealousy of the men who 
had done the fighting. But, whatever the reasons, the 
fact remained that the soldiers were unpaid ; that no pro- 
vision of any sort was made for them ; and that they 
seemed on the brink of bcin<2; dismissed to their homes, in 



HOW THE WAR ENDED 545 

many cases to want and destitution, with no compensa- 
tion but the memory of their hardships and their victories. 
Washington was profoundly moved by the attitude and 
policy of Congress. One of the deepest emotions of his 
strong nature was love for his soldiers, for those who had 
fought with him, and with this was coupled his passionate 
hatred of injustice. His letters to those in authority were 
not only full of hot indignation, but bitter in their denun- 
ciation of a policy which would reduce the army without 
providing for the men, as they were mustered out. He 
saw, too, what Congress failed to see, that here were not 
only injustice and ingratitude, flagrant and even cruel, but 
a great and menacing danger. It is a perilous business to 
deal out injustice, suffering, and want to the armed soldier, 
because the moment is sure to come when the man with 
the musket says that, if anyone is to be wronged or starved, 
it shall not be himself. What kings, Parliaments, or Con- 
gresses or legislatures refuse unjustly, human nature in the 
armed man will finally take by force ; and to this danger- 
ous frame of mind the American army was fast coming. 
Congress and the States went cheerfully along, making 
a few indefinite promises and doing nothing, while the 
mutterings and murmurs in camp began to grow louder, 
until at last they found expression in an able and adroitly 
written address, the work of John Armstrong. The 
voice of the armed man was rising clearly and distinctly 
now. It declared the sufferings and sorrows of the soldier 
and the ingratitude of Congress, and called the army to 
action and to the use of force. Thus the direct appeal 
was made. Only one man could keep words from becom- 
ing deeds, and Washington came forward and took control 
of the whole movement. He censured the address in o-eneral 



546 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

orders, and then called, himself, a meeting of the officers. 
When they had assembled, Washington arose with a man- 
uscript in his hand, and as he took out his glasses he said : 
" You see, gentlemen, I have grown both blind and gray 
in your service." Very simple words, very touching, with 
a pathos which no rhetoric could give, a pathos possible 
only in a great nature deeply stirred. And then he read 
his speech — clear, vigorous, elevated in tone, an appeal to 
the past and to patriotism, an earnest prayer to leave that 
past unsullied and to show confidence in the Government 
and the civil power, the whole ending with a promise that 
the General would obtain justice for the army. Then 
he withdrew, and to that great leadership all men there 
yielded, and the meeting passed resolutions and adjourned. 
At last Congress listened. The proceedings at Newburg 
penetrated even their indifference, the half-pay was com- 
muted, and with this and land warrants, and with the priv- 
ilege of taking their arms home with them, the army was 
fain to be content. It was not much, but it saved the 
Congress from the reproach of leaving its soldiers destitute 
and the country from a military revolution ; for no less a 
peril lurked behind the movement which Washington con- 
trolled and checked. Underneath the Newburg addresses 
and the murmurs of the troops, there ran a strong under- 
current of well-defined feeling in favor of taking control of 
the Government. The army was the one organized, effi- 
cient force in the country, their comrades in arms were 
scattered through all the towns and settlements, and they 
could appeal to the timid and the selfish everywhere in be- 
half of order and strength as against the feeble, impotent 
central government and the confused rule of thirteen 
States. All that they lacked was a leader, and the great 



HOW THE WAR ENDED 549 

leader was there at their head if he would only consent to 
serve. Openly, by letter, was the proposition made to 
Washington, and by him rejected with dignified and stern 
contempt. Secretly, the same whisper was ever in his 
ears, and nothing would have been easier for him than to 
have become a " Saviour of Society." The part is always 
a fascinating one and very easily converted into a conscien- 
tious duty. But Washington would have none of it. He 
saw this fact clearly, as he saw all facts. He knew what the 
condition of the times made possible, but the part of mili- 
tary dictator did not appeal to him. He was too great a 
man in character for that sort of work. It seemed to him 
that it would be a vulgar and sorry ending to the great 
task which had been performed, and so the wide-open easy 
opportunity was never even a temptation. His one de- 
sire was to have the Revolution finish as it began, in purity 
and loftiness of purpose, Unstained by any self-seeking, 
crowned with success, and undisfigured by usurpation. So 
he held his army in hand, prevented force and violence, 
stopped all attempts to make him the Caesar or Cromwell 
of the new Republic, and longed in his simple fashion very 
ardently and very anxiously to get back to his farms and 
gardens at Mount Vernon. 

Late in March, 1783, came the news of peace, the dan- 
ger from the army disappeared, and the fighting was done. 
Still the General could not go to the beloved home ; still 
Congress kept him employed in the public business, al- 
though they neither adopted nor perhaps understood the 
wide and far-reaching policies which he then urged upon 
them. Not until late in the autumn was he able to move 
his army down the Hudson to the city which he had held 
so lonor- surrounded. At last, on November 25th, the Brit- 



55o THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

ish departed and Washington marched in at the head of 
his men. It was the outward and visible sign that the war 
was over ; and as Washington's entrance into Boston meant 
that New England had been freed from English rule, so 
his entrance into New York meant that the Thirteen 
States of North America were in very truth, as Congress 
seven years before had declared that they were and ought 
to be, "free and independent." 

On December 4th the officers of the army met in 
Fraunces' tavern to bid their chief farewell. Washington, 
as he rose and faced them, could not control his voice. 
He lifted a glass of wine and said, "With a heart full of 
love and gratitude, I now take my leave of you, most de- 
voutlv wishing that your latter days may be as prosperous 
and happy as your former ones have been glorious and 
honorable." They drank in silence, and Washington said, 
" I cannot come to each of you and take my leave, but 
shall be obliged if you will come and take me by the hand." 
Up they came, one by one ; and one by one Washington, 
his eyes filled with tears, embraced them and said farewell. 
From the tavern they followed him to the ferry, where he 
entered his barge. As the boat moved away, he rose and 
lifted his hat. His officers returned the salute in silence, 
and all was over. 

One great scene was still to be enacted, when at Annap- 
olis Washington returned his commission to Congress. 
But let us leave the American Revolution here. Let us 
close it with this parting at the water's edge, when the 
man without whom the Revolution would have failed bade 
farewell to the officers and men without whom he could 
not have won. The fighting was done, the Continental 
Army was dissolved. That noble and gracious figure, 



HOW THE WAR ENDED 



55i 




THE HOME OF GEORGE WASHINGTON 
AT MOUNT VERNON, WITH THE 
INTERIOR OF HIS ROOM. 




standing up alone and bare- 
headed in the boat which was 
carrying him southward and 
away from his army, signi- 
fied to all the world that the American Revolution had 
ended in complete victory. Perhaps its greatest triumph 
was that it had brought forth such a leader of men as the 
one now returning to his peaceful home at Mount Vernon, 
and that, thanks to him, whatever mistakes had been made 
or defeats encountered, the war of the people for a larger 
liberty closed unsullied by violence and with no stain of 
military despotism upon its record. 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE MEANING OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 

SO the end had come. The English-speaking people 
had divided, the British Empire had been broken, 
the American Revolution had been fought out, and 
a new nation was born. Here, surely, was a very great 
event, full of significance and meaning if rightly considered. 
What, then, did it really mean to the world at large, and 
especially to the people who had made the fight, and were 
henceforth to be two nations ? 

To the world it meant the beginning of the democratic 
movement, so little understood at the moment, so very 
plain to all now. It was the coming of a new force into 
the western world of Europe and America. A people had 
risen in arms, and, disregarding all traditions and all habits, 
had set forth the declaration that they were to govern them- 
selves in their own way, and that government was no 
longer to be the privilege of one man called a king, or of 
any class of men by mere right of birth. To vindicate this 
claim they had fought, using the only method by which 
any people has ever been able to prove its right to any- 
thing ; and thus the armed people in opposition to the dis- 
ciplined soldiers of royalty had come into existence, and 
the armed people had won. Great facts these, ominous 
and portentous even, and yet so curiously little heeded in 



MEANING OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 553 

their deeper meanings at the moment. France thought 
only that she had crippled England and taken an ample re- 
venge for the past. England knew that she had received 
a heavy blow, was troubled with uneasy forebodings, sus- 
pected that something was not altogether right in her 
system of administration, and began to stir a little with 
abortive projects of reform. Europe generally looked on 
stolidly, felt some satisfaction at England's misfortunes, 
and regarded the affair as well over, with much benefit to 
balances of power and other delights of the diplomatic mind. 
Even America herself thought only that her object had 
been obtained, that she was free from the control of a power 
over seas, and set to work to deal with her own concerns 
in a fashion by no means creditable at the outset. None 
of them saw the strong, deep current of change which had 
set in that April morning at Concord, and which had 
flowed on to Yorktown. It sank out of sight, as rivers 
sometimes do in the bowels of the earth, so soon as peace 
was made, and men said contentedly that there was no 
river after all. Six years went by, and the stream had 
come to the surface once more, far away from America 
this time, and France was moving with a deep unrest. 
Now the current was flowing fiercely and swiftly, with a 
headlong rapidity which dazed all onlookers. Privileges 
and orders, customs and Bastiles, went down before it, and 
presently other things too — men's lives and royal crowns 
and the heads that wore them. No doubt now of the 
meaning which had been obscured in America. "The 
rights of man," " Liberty, equality, fraternity," and other 
strange new cries were heard on every street-corner ; and 
the old systems, which had fostered and played with the 
American Revolution, waked up and said, "This business 



554 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

must be stopped, and this rabble put down." And then, 
behold, it could not be done — the rabble eould not be put 
down ; and the armed people, twenty-five millions strong, 
flung themselves on Europe, rolled back the royal armies, 
and carried their victories and their doctrines far beyond 
the borders of France. 

In the armed people democracy had produced a force 
against which the old systems could not stand. It rushed 
forward with a fervor, an energy, and a wild faith which 
nothing could resist. A career was suddenly opened to 
talents, and from the inn and farm and tannery, from the 
petty attorney's office, the vineyard, and the shop, sprang 
up men who, by sheer ability, rose to command armies, 
govern nations, and fill thrones. Opportunity was no 
longer confined to those who had birth and rank, to the 
royal bastard or the Court favorite, and the old system, 
shattered by this unexpected and painful discovery, went 
down in ruins. Concentrated in the hands of one man, 
the new force swept away the wretched princelings who 
sold their subjects for soldiers, the little tyrants, the cor- 
rupt monarchies, and the holy inquisition, still powerful in 
Spain. To meet the despotism thus engendered, the 
people of Germany and the people of Spain had to be 
called forth to join England and Austria and Russia, in 
order to save the national existence which their kings had 
been unable to protect. Popular force was met at last by 
popular force, and when Napoleon ended at Waterloo. 
Metternichs and Bourbons and Liverpools and other wise 
persons, who had forgotten a great deal and learned noth- 
ing, thought that all u T as over, that nothing remained but 
to return to the nice old systems of the previous century, 
and that everything would again be quiet and comfortable. 



MEANING OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 555 

But it soon appeared that, although a man had been de- 
feated, the force which had made him possible and the move- 
ment which had borne him forward had not been defeated 
at all. The old system did not work well. There were 
outbreaks and unrest, and a Holy Alliance had to be 
made ; and then an English statesman called in the New 
World, which had started the whole movement, to redress 
the balance of the Old, and the entire continental Empire 
of Spain in the Americas broke off and became democratic, 
causing great annoyance and perplexity to persons of the 
Metternich kind. In 1830 another revolution came in 
France, and the sorry revival of kings by divine right van- 
ished in the days of July among the barricades of Paris. 
England, meantime, had tried to meet her own unrest by 
Peterloo and similar performances, and the answer had not 
proved satisfactory. Something different was clearly need- 
ed, and in 1832, with the splendid sense so characteristic of 
the English people, the Reform Bill was passed, the demo- 
cratic movement was recognized, a revolution of arms was 
avoided, and a peaceful revolution consummated. Mean- 
while Greece had escaped from Turkey, and the movement 
of the people to hold or share in the business of governing 
went steadily forward. There were years when it seemed 
wholly repressed and hopeless, and then years like 1848, 
when it rose in its might, crushed everything in its path, 
and took a long step ahead, with the inevitable reaction 
afterward, until a fresh wave gathered strength and rolled 
again a little higher up with the ever-rising tide. Italy 
broke away from Austria and gained her national unity ; 
representative systems with more or less power came into 
being in every European country, except Russia and Tur- 
key ; the wretched little tyrants of the petty states of Ger- 



556 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

many and Italy, the oppressive temporal government of 
the Pope, have all been swept out of existence, and given 
place to a larger national life and to a recognition more or 
less complete of the power and rights of the people. Even 
to-day, in obedience to the same law, the colonial despot- 
ism of Spain has perished from the face of the earth 
because it was a hideous anachronism. 

The democratic movement has gone so far and so fast 
that it is but little heeded now, and men have become 
almost entirely oblivious of its existence. Vet it is never 
still, it is always advancing. It has established itself in 
Japan, it cannot be disregarded even by the master of the 
German armies, and before many years it will be felt in 
Russia. So rapid has been its progress and so complete 
its victories that men forget what it has accomplished, turn 
their whole attention to the evils which it has left un- 
touched, and are in some instances ready not merely to 
criticise it, but to proclaim it a failure. The statesman who 
declared that gratitude was a lively sense of favors to come 
uttered not merely a brilliant epigram but a profound 
philosophic truth, which applies not only to human beings, 
but to theories of life and to systems of government. 
When the democratic movement began, and for three- 
quarters of a century afterward, the men who were light- 
ing for liberty and the rights of man believed, as all genu- 
ine reformers must believe, that if this vast change were 
carried out, if tyranny were abolished, if votes and a share 
in the government were given to the people, then all the 
evils flesh is heir to would surely disappear. The great 
political reform lias been, in large measure, accomplished, 
and nevertheless many evils yet remain.' There are still 
poverty, suffering, ignorance, injustice, lack of oppor- 



MEANING OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 557 

tunity, crime, and misery in the world in large abundance, 
and so some men hasten to say that democracy has failed. 
They forget what democracy has done, and see only what 
it has left undone. The great political reform in which 
men believed so passionately, and for which they fought 
and died and suffered, has come and is still growing and 
expanding ; and yet the earth is not a Utopia, nor have sin 
and sorrow vanished. It is the old story ; the universal 
remedy was not a panacea after all, and the fact is over- 
looked that there are no panaceas for human ills, and that 
the only fair wav to judge a great reform or a sweeping 
social and political movement is by its results, and not by 
fixing our eyes solely on those evils which it has left un- 
touched and which it is powerless to cure. Tried in this 
way, by the only just standard, democracy has been a mar- 
vellous success — more helpful, more beneficial to the human 
race than any other political system yet devised by man. 
To it we owe the freedom of thought, the freedom of con- 
science, the freedom of speech, which exist to-day in their 
fulness among the English-speaking people, and more or 
less completely among all the great nations of western 
Europe. No longer can men be powerful solely by the 
accident of birth, or be endowed from the cradle with the 
right to torture, outrage, and imprison their fellow-beings 
less fortunately born. 

The craving of this present time is for greater equality 
of opportunity, but it is to the democratic movement that 
we owe the vast enlargement to all men of the oppor- 
tunity for happiness and success since 1776. We picture 
easily to ourselves the tyrannies and oppressions of the 
Old World which went down in the tempest of the French 
Revolution, and were so completely effaced that the aver- 



553 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

age man in Europe neither knows nor realizes that they 
ever existed. But we are prone to think that in America, 
where government was always easy and light, the change 
wrought by democracy has been trilling and that we owe 
it little. Many men see defects and shortcomings in our 
municipal governments with great clearness, and some of 
them, while they shake their heads over the democracy 
which they believe guilty of these faults, are utterly blind 
to the great fact that democracy made slavery impossible 
and crushed it out only a generation ago— a deed for 
humanity which makes all other achievements look small. 
The same holds true in lesser things. We know, for ex- 
ample, how democracy has softened and reformed the aw- 
ful criminal code of the England of Pitt and Fox, and 
wiped out the miseries of the debtors' prisons which Dick- 
ens described thirty years later ; but we overlook the fact 
that we ourselves were but little better in these respects. 
Robert Morris, the patriot who upheld the breaking credit 
and failing treasury of the confederation in the last days 
of the Revolution, and gave to the American cause freely 
from his own purse, passed four years in prison in his old 
age for the crime of having failed in business. Such a 
punishment inflicted by the law for such a cause would 
be impossible now, and yet this is but an illustration of 
the vast change effected by democracy in the relations of 
men one to another. The altruism which is so marked 
a feature of the century just closing is the outcome of 
democracy. To the man who shares in the government 
<>l his country, or who has political rights, svmpathy must 
be given by his fellows, for in one great relation of life 
they all stand together. Nothing is more hardening, noth- 
ing tends more to cruelty, than the rigid separation of 



MEANING OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 559 

classes ; and when all men have certain common politi- 
cal rights and an equality before the law the class-line is 
shattered, and men cannot consider other men as creatures 
wholly apart, whose sufferings are a matter of indifference. 
The great work of democracy has been in widening sym- 
pathy, in softening and humanizing laws, customs, and 
manners. The debt due to it in this way no man can esti- 
mate ; for no man can now realize, in imagination, the 
sufferings, oppressions, cruelties, and heartless indifference 
of society a hundred years ago which democracy has swept 
away. Democracy is fallible and imperfect, because hu- 
man nature is so ; but it has come, it has brought untold 
good to mankind, it will bring yet more. It makes for 
humanity, civilization, and the uplifting of the whole race, 
and it will in greater and greater measure dominate the 
world and control governments. No man can stay its 
resistless march, and under various forms the principle 
that the people are to have their own governments, good 
or bad, no matter what the outward dress, and that the 
last word is with the people, is rising every day to more 
supreme dominion in the affairs of men. This great move- 
ment, which overthrew the world's equilibrium, brought 
new forces into being, and changed society and govern- 
ments, began in America with the Continental Congress 
and the flash of the o;uns at Lexington and Concord. It 
closed its first chapter at Yorktown, and by the treaty of 
Paris it was acknowledged that a people had won the right to 
rule themselves. A very momentous conclusion this, and it 
was the message of the American Revolution to mankind. 

To those immediately concerned in and most closely 
touched by it, the Revolution brought other meanings 



560 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

besides that shared by the world at large, and these, too, 
merit consideration. Let us inquire briefly what the 
effect was on the combatants themselves, upon the two 
divisions of the English-speaking people thus created by 
war. Hostile statesmen on the Continent were not slow 
to predict that the severance of her Empire and the loss 
of her North American colonies meant the downfall of 
Great Britain. Even in England prophecies were not 
lacking that the zenith of her fortunes had passed and 
her decline begun. These forebodings — the offspring of 
that cheap wisdom which is empty of hope, void of 
imagination,, and sees only the past — were soon set at 
naught. In the great wars which followed the French 
Revolution, the indomitable spirit of England raised her 
to a higher pinnacle of power and splendor than she had 
ever attained before, and the victories of war were fol- 
lowed by the wonderful career of colonial expansion and 
growing wealth of which this century has been the witness. 
Heavy as the loss of the North American Colonies was 
at the time, the American Revolution, although it divided 
the Empire of Great Britain, did not check its growth in 
other regions and in lands almost unknown to the eigh- 
teenth century. One great reason for the marvellous de- 
velopment of England, and for the success which has fol- 
lowed her arms and her commerce ever since the American 
Revolution, was the fact that by that bitter experience she 
learned well one great lesson. Never again did England 
make the mistakes or engage in the blundering policy 
which lost her all North America south of the Canadian 
frontier. No other English colonies were ever treated as 
those of the Atlantic seaboard had been ; and the wise 
colonial policy which has enabled England, while giving 



MEANING OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 561 

to her colonies everywhere the largest liberty, at the same 
time, to grapple them to her with hooks of steel, was as 
much the result of the American Revolution as the Peace 
of Paris. In England's ability to learn this lesson we can 
see the secret of her wonderful success, and can contrast 
it with the history of Spain, whose barbarous colonial 
policy has cost her an empire and taught her nothing in 
the process. 

But although England learned this lesson and profited 
by it with results which have surpassed the most un- 
bounded hopes of her statesmen and people, there was 
another lesson which she utterly failed to heed. She 
learned how to deal with her other colonies, and with 
those still greater ones which she was destined to win, 
but she learned nothing as to the proper way to treat 
the people whom she had driven into revolt and lost, and 
who differed in no essential respect from English speak- 
ing people elsewhere. Toward them she maintained the 
same attitude which had driven them into rebellion, and 
which now could only alienate them still further. The 
Americans, on their side, after the war feeling had sub- 
sided, were only too ready to renew with the mother- 
country the closest and most friendly relations. It is 
easier to cut political bonds than it is to sever the ties 
of blood and speech, and, above all, habits of daily life 
and intercourse, which, impalpable as they are, outlast 
constitutions and governments. Every habit of thought 
and of business, every natural prejudice and interest, still 
bound the Americans to England. Had she so willed 
she could in a few years have had the growing trade, the 
expanding markets, and the political sympathy of Amer- 
ica as completely in every practical way as if the States 



562 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

had remained her colonies. And it was all so simple. 
An evident desire to cultivate good relations with the 
United States, kind words, a declared policy of not inter- 
fering with the Western movement from the Atlantic 
States, a little generosity, and England would have made 
America her friend and kept her as her ally in the troub- 
lous years which were to follow. Instead of this, a course 
of conduct was adopted which seemed like a settled policy 
of injuring America in every possible way, of retarding 
her growth and alienating her people. Our early repre- 
sentatives in London were flouted and treated with rude- 
ness and disdain. Everything possible was done to inter- 
fere with and break up our West Indian commerce, and 
Lord Dorchester openly incited the Indian tribes to attack 
our Western settlements, with a view to preventing their 
advance — a piece of savagery it is now difficult to con- 
ceive, and which America found it hard to forgive. Un- 
der the pressure of the struggle with France, England 
finally consented to make a treaty, and drove with Jay a 
hard bargain from our necessities. Then came the sec- 
ond period of Napoleonic wars. The most ordinary sense 
would seem to have dictated a policy which would have 
made the Americans, who were at that time the great sea- 
faring people among the neutral nations, the ally of 
England in the desperate conflict in which she was en- 
gaged. Even Jefferson, as we now know, with all his 
reputed and apparent hostility to England, tried to bring 
about close relations between the two countries. But 
England pursued a steady course of hostility. There 
was no injury or wrong which she failed to do us ; no 
insult was spared us by her public men. English bru- 
tality surpassed even the cynical outrages heaped upon 



MEANING OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 5°3 

us by Napoleon, and brought at last the War of 181 2, 
a righteous war of resistance and one bringing most 
valuable results to the United States. "The fir frigates, 
with a bit of bunting at the top," at which Canning had 
jeered in the House of Commons, whipped England's 
frigates in eleven actions out of thirteen, while Perry and 
McDonough crushed her flotillas on the lakes. British 
troops burned Washington, but Jackson, with six thou- 
sand men, routed ten thousand of Wellington's veterans 
at New Orleans — an ample compensation. Ill-conducted 
as the war by land was on the American side, our naval 
victories and the fact that we had fought won us our place 
among nations, and relieved us finally from the insults and 
the attacks to which we had before been subjected. 

England suffered in her naval prestige, gained ab- 
solutelv nothing by conquest, was forced to respect our 
flag on the seas, and had embittered feeling between the 
two kindred countries. The utter fatuity of such a policy, 
fraught as it was with such results, seems sufficiently ob- 
vious now, and it quite equalled in stupidity that which 
brought the Revolution and cost England her colonies. 

Nevertheless, for a time, the War of 181 2 improved 
our mutual relations. Americans were pleased by their 
successes on sea and by the victory of New Orleans, 
while England both felt and manifested a respect for a 
people who had fought her so hard. The result was 
seen in a better understanding and in the Monroe Doc- 
trine, which was stimulated by Canning's " calling in the 
New World to redress the balance of the Old," although 
he soon abandoned and denounced the American policy 
of Adams and Monroe. So easy was it for the two 
nations to come together when the older country did not 
put obstacles in the way. But the fair prospect was soon 



564 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

overclouded. The English traveller and author came in 
as the century advanced, to widen the breach between 
the two countries more effectively, perhaps, than the 
statesmen had done. We had already enjoyed a taste 
of this criticism in the writings of Mr. Thomas Moore, 
who carrie to the United States at the beginning of the 
century ami mourned over our decay, in verses of trifling 
poetieal merit and great smoothness of rhyme and metre. 
But thirty years later there arose a swarm of writers, of 
whom Mrs. Trollope and Dickens were, perhaps, the most 
conspicuous, who gratified their own feelings and met 
their home market with descriptions of the United States 
and its people which left nothing offensive unsaid. Our 
hospitality to our critics was no protection to us, and a 
sense of ingratitude added poison to the smart of wounded 
vanity. We were a young nation, beginning to grow very 
rapidly, engaged in the hard, rough work of subduing a 
continent. We had all the faults and shortcomings of 
a new and quickly growing community ; and no doubt 
a great deal of what our critics said was perfectly true, 
which may have sharpened the sting. But the faults were 
largely superficial, and the nation was engaged in a great 
work and was sound at the core. This fact our English 
critics had not the generosity to admit, and their refusal 
to do so galled our pride. 

We had one great defect of youth, as a matter of 
course. We were weakly and abnormally sensitive to 
outside and adverse criticism. Attacks or satire which 
no one would notice now except to laugh at them, which, 
for the most part, would not be heard of at all to-day, in 
the first half of the century cut us to the quick. That 
they should have done so was, no doubt, foolish and 



MEANING OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 565 

youthful ; but that docs not affect the question of whether 
it was wise in England through her newspapers, her au- 
thors, and her magazines to treat the United States sys- 
tematically, so far as one could sec, in a manner which, as 
Mr. Justice Maule said to Sir Richard Bethell, "would 
have been an insult from God Almighty to. a black 
beetle." Was it worth while to take so much pains 
to convert into enemies a great and growing people 
who spoke the same tongue, had the same aspirations, 
and were naturally inclined to be friends with the old 
home which their ancestors had left so many years be- 
fore ? 

There was one criticism, however, which the English 
made, and which they had the right, even the duty, to 
make without mercy, and they did it unsparingly. No de- 
nunciation could be too severe of English-speaking people 
who in the nineteenth century boasted of their own freedom 
and maintained human slavery. To this righteous criticism 
of the United States there could be no answer, and there 
was none. But the years went by and brought, in due 
time, the inevitable conflict between slavery and freedom. 
The North was fighting for Union, but its victory meant 
the downfall of slavery. The loyal North therefore turned 
confidently for support to England, which had denounced 
American slavery, and found the sympathy of her Gov- 
ernment and ruling classes given wholly to the slave- 
holding South. Never was there a more painful, a 
more awful surprise. England went far enough in ad- 
verse action to fill the North with bitterness, and not 
far enough to leave the South with anything but a sense 
of betrayal and the anger of the vanquished against a false 
friend. At last the Union emerged triumphant from its 



566 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

great life and death struggle. In those four dark years 
our youth had gone ; and we came out not only with a 
conviction of our own strength, but with an utter indiffer- 
ence to foreign opinion, which was as right and wholesome 
as our former sensitiveness had been foolish and unwise. 
None the less, the memories of England's conduct in our 
hour of need rankled deeply — and we regarded Mr. Glad- 
stone's wise and statesmanlike policy of arbitration as 
merely extorted by the respect which military power and 
success always produce. 

Again the years went by, and the old animosities had 
begun to quiet down when the seal controversy arose, 
and America was utterly unable to understand why Eng- 
land should insist on a course of action which has re- 
sulted and could only result in the destruction of those 
valuable herds. Her action throughout this unlucky 
question seemed as if dictated by mere malice. Then 
came Venezuela, and a few plain, rough words from Mr. 
Cleveland brought a just settlement of a question very 
momentous in its meanings to the United States, which 
twenty years of civil remonstrance and argument had 
failed to obtain. England, careless of the past, wondered 
at the sudden burst of hostility in the United States ; 
while Americans were brought to believe that we could 
get neither justice nor civility from England, except by 
harsh words and by going even to the verge of war. It 
was not a very encouraging sight, this spectacle then pre- 
sented by the two great English-speaking nations. Such 
a frame of mind, such an attitude, was something to won- 
der at, not to praise. Be it remembered, also, that the 
Americans arc not ungrateful and have never been slow 
to recognize their friends in England. They have never 



MEANING OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 56; 

forgotten that the Queen and Prince Albert, John Bright 
and Richard Cobden, and the workingmen of England 
were their friends and stood by them in the Civil War. 
They recall, not without a touch of pride, that the friends 
of America in England include not only those of the dark 
days of 1861, but the great names of Chatham and Burke, 
of Fox and Camden, even when revolution tore the Em- 
pire asunder. But the friends of America thus far have 
never been the Government or the Ministry, or the mass 
of the ruling classes in England. 

Less than a year ago I should have stopped here, with 
words of regret that the lesson of the American Revolu- 
tion, so far as the United States was concerned, had not 
yet been learned by England, and the expression of the 
earnest hope that this mastery of its meaning might not 
be much further delayed. Now it is no longer possible 
to stop here. Events have shown that the lesson of the 
Revolution has at last been learned, and that all that has 
just been said as to the ease with which the friendship of 
the United States could be obtained by England is more 
than justified. It could not well be otherwise, when right 
methods were pursued, for friendship between the two na- 
tions is natural, not only by the common speech, hopes, 
beliefs, and ideals, but by the much stronger ties of real 
interest, while enmity is unnatural and can be created only 
by effort. 

The United States went to war with Spain. It is 
now easily seen that the conflict was inevitable. " If it 
be now, 'tis not to come ; if it be not to come, it will be 
now ; if it be not now, yet it will come ; the readiness is 
all." Spanish colonial despotism and the free government 
of the United States could not exist longer side by side. 



5 68 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

The conflict, which had been going on for a century, was 
as inexorable as that between freedom and slavery. The 
war happened to come now instead of later, that is all. 
Once engaged in war the United States neither desired 
nor needed aid from anyone. But nations as well as men 
like sympathy. From the people of Europe we met with 
neutrality, but also with criticism, attack, and with every 
manifestation of dislike in greater or less degree, and from 
Germany, with a thinly veiled, mousing hostility which 
did not become overt, because, like the poor cat in the 
adage, it let " 1 dare not wait upon I would." From the 
English-speaking people everywhere came, on the other 
hand, spontaneous, heartfelt sympathy, and England's Gov- 
ernment showed that the sympathy of the people was rep- 
resented in her rulers. That was all that was needed, all 
that was ever needed. No matter what the reason, the 
fact was there. The lesson of the American Revolution 
was plain at last, and the attitude of sympathy, the policy 
which would have prevented that Revolution, finally was 
given to the great nation that has sprung from the Colo- 
nies which Washington led to independence. How Amer- 
ica has responded to the sympathy of England all men 
know, better perhaps in the United States than anywhere 
else.. Community of sympathy and interest will make a 
friendship between the nations far stronger than any 
treaties can create. The artificial barriers are down, and 
all right-thinking men on both sides of the Atlantic must 
earnestly strive to prove that it is not a facile optimism 
which now believes that the friendship so long postponed 
and so full of promise for humanity and civilization must 
long endure. The millions who speak the English tongue 
in all j tarts of the earth must surely see now that, once 




ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
From the fainting by John Trumbull, iy<)2. 



MEANING OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 571 

united in friendship, it can be said, even as Shakespeare 
said three hundred years ago : 



Come the three corners of the world in arms, 
And we shall shock them. 



To the victorious Americans the Revolution meant, at 
first, simply that they had freed their country from Eng- 
lish rule, and henceforth were to govern themselves. With 
the close of the war it seemed to them that all was com- 
pleted, and that they had nothing to do but go on in the 
old way with their State governments. Washington and 
Hamilton and others who thought deeply and were charged 
with heavy responsibility saw very plainly that there must 
be a better central Government, or else America would 
degenerate into thirteen jarring and warring States, and 
the American Revolution would prove a more dire failure 
in its triumphant outcome than any defeat in battle could 
have brought. The earnest words of Washington fell on 
deaf ears, even while war was in progress ; and when the 
pressure of war was withdrawn the feeble confederation 
dropped to pieces, disorder broke out in various quarters, 
new states began to spring up, and disintegration spread 
and became threatening. The American people had won 
in fight the right and opportunity to govern themselves, 
and the great question which now confronted them was 
whether they were able and fit to do it. It was soon 
apparent that the Revolution had for them not merely 
the message that they had freed themselves from Eng- 
land, but far deeper meanings. They had proved that 
they could fight. Could they also prove that they were 
worthy of the victory they had won, and that they had 



572 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

the right to live as a people? Could they make a nation, 
or were they incapable of that great achievement, and 
able only to go jarring on to nothingness, a wrangling 
collection of petty republics? Here was a task far 
heavier, infinitely more difficult, than that of armed revo- 
lution. They had shown that they were a fighting people, 
as was to have keen expected. Could they also show that 
they were likewise a great people capable of building up 
a nation, capable of construction, with the ruling, con- 
quering, imperial instinct of their race still vital and strong 
within them ? The answer the American people gave to 
these questions of life and death, which all the peoples of 
the earth have to answer rightly or perish, is the history 
of the United States. They dragged themselves out of 
the disintegration and ehaos of the confederation and 
formed the Constitution of the United States. It was 
hard work, then' were many narrow escapes, much hitter 
opposition, but the great step was taken and the instru- 
ment adopted which made a nation possible. The strug- 
gle then began in earnest, and lasted for three-quarters 
of a century, between the forces of separatism, which 
meant at bottom a return to ehaos and to that disorder 
which is hateful to gods and men, and the forces of union, 
which meant order, strength, and power. It was a long 
and doubtful conflict. The Constitution was tried in its 
infancy by the Whiskey Rebellion, a little later it was 
threatened by Virginia and Kentucky, a little later still 
by Xew England, then by South Carolina and nullifica- 
tion ; and yet through all and under all the national spirit 
was growing, and the Constitution was changing from a 
noble experiment into the charter of a nation. At last 
the supreme test came. Freedom and slavery, two hostile 



MEANING OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 573 

social and economic systems, were struggling for domina- 
tion. They could not live side by side. One must c;o, 
and in their irrepressible conflict they brought civil war. 
It was the final trial. In the terrible ordeal of battle the 
national principle prevailed, and it was shown that democ- 
racy, though slow to enter upon war, could fight with 
relentless determination for a complete victory. 

The Civil War ended the struggle between the principle 
of separatism and that of union and undivided empire. 
The national principle henceforth was to have unquestioned 
sway. But during all the seventy-five years of strife be- 
tween the contending principles, another great movement 
had been going forward, which was itself indeed a child of 
the national spirit and the outcome of the instinct of a 
governing race. We began to widen our borders and an- 
nex territory, and we carried on this appropriation of land 
upon a scale which, during the same period, has been sur- 
passed by England alone. Jefferson made the Louisiana 
purchase in disregard of all suggestions of constitutional 
objections, thus more than doubling the national domain, 
and carrying our possessions to regions more remote and 
inaccessible to us then than any point on the earth's sur- 
face is to-day. Monroe took the Floridas. Then came 
Texas, then the great accessions of the Mexican War, and 
we had an empire in our hands stretching from ocean to 
ocean. After the Civil War the American people turned 
all their energy to subduing and occupying the vast terri- 
tory which they had bought with their money or conquered 
by their sword. It was an enormous task, and absorbed 
the strength and enterprise of the people for thirty years. 
Finally the work was done, the frontiers advancing from 
the East and the West disappeared and melted together ; 



574 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

even Alaska, the only large acquisition after the Civil War, 
was opened to settlement and to the in-rush of the miner 
and lumberman. The less than three millions of the Rev- 
olution had grown to be over seventy millions, masters of 
a continent, rich beyond all the early dreams of wealth, 
with unlimited revenues, and still untamed in hope and 
energv. They had built up an industrial system which had 
far outrun all that Hamilton ever dared to imagine, and 
held at home the greatest market in the world. Such a na- 
tion could not be developed in this way and yet be kept fet- 
tered in its interests and activities by its own boundaries. 
Sooner or later it was bound to return to the ocean which 
it had abandoned temporarily for the easier opportunities 
of its own land. Sooner or later it was sure to become a 
world-power, for it had grown too powerful, too rich ; it 
had too many interests, it desired too many openings for 
its enterprise, to remain shut up even by the ocean borders 
of a continent. How and when this change would come 
no man could tell. Great movements which have long 
been ripening and making ready always start suddenly into 
active life at the last, and men look at them with wild sur- 
mise and think they are new when they are in reality very 
old. So the inevitable has happened, and the Spanish 
war has awakened the people of the United States to the 
fact that they have risen to be a world-power, henceforth to 
be reckoned with among the very few great nations of the 
earth. The questions of the acquisition here and there of 
territory upon which markets rest or defence depends are 
del ails. The great fact is the abandonment of isolation, and 
this can neither be escaped nor denied. There is no incon- 
sistency here with the past. It is the logical result of our 
development as a nation. Our foreign policy has always 



MEANING OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 575 

been wise and simple. Washington laid down the proposi- 
tion that we should not meddle in the affairs of Europe, 
and, with France in his mind, warned us against entangling 
alliances. Monroe added the corollary that Europe should 
not be permitted to make any new acquisitions of territory 
in the Americas. To both doctrines we have held firmly, 
and that of Monroe we have extended and enforced, and 
shall always enforce it, now more than ever before. But 
neither Washington nor Monroe sought to limit us either 
in our own hemisphere or in parts of the world other than 
Europe. They were wise men with wise policies, but they 
could not read our unknown future nor deal with problems 
far beyond their ken. They marked the line so far as they 
could foresee the course then, and were too sagacious to 
lay down rules and limitations about the unknowable, such 
as the doubting and timid of a later generation would fain 
attribute to them. Isolation in the United States has 
been a habit, not a policy. It has been bred by circum- 
stances and by them justified. When the circumstances 
change, the habit perforce changes too, and new policies 
are born to suit new conditions. 

The American people have made mistakes, as all peo- 
ple do who make anything. They have had their errors, 
failures, and shortcomings, and they have many grave 
problems to solve, many evils to mitigate, many difficul- 
ties to conquer. But after all deductions are made, the 
American democracy has achieved a marvellous success, 
moral and intellectual, as well as material. It has lifted 
up humanity ; it has raised the standard of life ; it has 
added to the well-being, freedom, and happiness of the 
average man ; it has made strongly for justice, civilization, 
liberty, and peace. It has proved worthy of its heritage. 



576 THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

Now, having made a great nation, it has become a world- 
power, because it is too great and powerful to be aught 
else. A great self-governing nation and a world-power ; 
such has come to be the result and the meaning of the 
Revolution of 1776 to Americans and to mankind. 



APPENDIX 



I 

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

/// Congress, July 4, 1776 

A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States 
of America, in Congress Assembled 

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for 
one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them 
with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the 
separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's 
God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind re- 
quires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the 
separation. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident — that all men are created 
equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalien- 
able rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted 
among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the gov- 
erned ; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive 
of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and 
to institute a new government, laying its foundations on such prin- 
ciples, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem 
most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, 
will dictate that governments long established should not be changed 
for light and transient causes ; and, accordingly, all experience hath 
shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are suf- 
ferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which 
they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpa- 
tions, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce 
them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, 
to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their 

579 



5S0 APPENDIX 

future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colo- 
nics, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter 
their former systems of government. The history of the present 
king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpa- 
tions, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute 
tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to 
a candid world. 

i. He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and 
necessary for the public good. 

2. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and 
pressing importance, unless suspended in their operations till his 
assent should be obtained ; and, when so suspended, he has utterly 
neglected to attend to them. 

3. He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of 
large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the 
right of representation in the Legislature — a right inestimable to 
them, and formidable to tyrants only. 

4. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, 
uncomfortable, and distant from the repository of their public rec- 
ords, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his 
measures. 

5. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for oppos- 
ing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people. 

6. He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause 
others to be elected, whereby the legislative powers, incapable of 
annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise ; 
the State remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the dangers of 
invasions from without, and convulsions within. 

7. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States ; 
for that purpose obstructing the laws for the naturalization of for- 
eigners ; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, 
and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. 

8. He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing 
his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. 

9. He has made judges dependent of his will alone for the tenure 
on their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. 

10. He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither 
swarms of officers, to harass our people and eat out their sub- 
stance. 

ii. He has kept among us in times of peace, standing armies, 
without the consent of our Legislatures. 



APPENDIX -Sr 

12. He has affected to render the military independent of, and 
superior to, the civil power. 

13. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction 
foreign to our constitutions, and unacknowledged by our laws ; giv- 
ing his assent to their acts of pretended legislation ; 

14. For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us ; 

15. For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for 
any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these 
States ; 

16. For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world ; 

17. For imposing taxes on us without our consent ; 

18. For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of a trial by 
jury ; 

19. For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended 
offences ; 

20. For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighbor- 
ing province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and en- 
larging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit 
instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies ; 

21. For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable 
laws, and altering, fundamentally, the forms of our governments ; 

22. For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring them- 
selves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. 

23. He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his 
protection, and waging war against us. 

24. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our 
towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. 

25. He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mer- 
cenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, 
already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely 
paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head 
of a civilized nation. 

26. He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the 
high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the execu- 
tioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their 
hands. 

27. He has excited domestic insurrection among us, and has en- 
deavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless 
Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished 
destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions. 

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for re- 



rs 2 APPENDIX 

dress in the most humble terms ; our repeated petitions have been 
answered only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus 
marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the 
ruler of a free people. 

Nor have we been wanting in our attentions to our British breth- 
ren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their 
legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We 
have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and set- 
tlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magna- 
nimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kin- 
tired to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt 
our connections and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to 
the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acqui- 
esce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them 
as we hold the rest of mankind — enemies in war ; in peace, friends. 

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of Amer- 
ica in general Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge 
of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and 
by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly pub- 
lish and declare that these united colonies are, and of right ought to 
be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all 
allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection be- 
tween them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally 
dissolved, and that, as free and independent States, they have full 
power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish com- 
merce, and do all other acts and things which independent States may 
of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm 
reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge 
to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. 



II 

THE PARIS TREATY 

Definitive Treaty of Peace Between the United States of 
America and His Britannic Majesty. Concluded at 
Paris, September 3, 1783 

In the name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity. 

It having pleased the Divine Providence to dispose the hearts of 
the most serene and most potent Prince, George the Third, by the 
Grace of God King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender 
of the Faith, Duke of Brunswick and Luneburg, Arch-Treasurer and 
Prince Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, &ca., and of the United 
States of America, to forget all past misunderstandings and differ- 
ences that have unhappily interrupted the good correspondence and 
friendship which they mutually wish to restore ; and to establish such 
a beneficial and satisfactory intercourse between the two countries, 
upon the ground of reciprocal advantages and mutual conven- 
ience, as may promote and secure to both perpetual peace and har- 
mony : And having for this desirable end already laid the founda- 
tion of peace and reconciliation, by the provisional articles, signed at 
Paris, on the 30th of Nov'r, 17S2, by the commissioners empowered 
on each part, which articles were agreed to be inserted in and to 
constitute the treaty of peace proposed to be concluded between the 
Crown of Great Britain and the said United States, but which treaty 
was not to be concluded until terms of peace should be agreed upon 
between Great Britain and France, and His Britannic Majesty should 
be ready to conclude such treaty accordingly ; and the treaty between 
Great Britain and France having since been concluded, His Britannic 
Majesty and the United States of America, in order to carry into 
full effect the provisional articles above mentioned, according to the 
tenor thereof, have constituted and appointed, that is to say, His 

5 S3 



584 APPENDIX 

Britannic Majesty on his part, David Hartley, esqr., member of the 
Parliament of Great Britain ; and the said United States on their 
part, John Adams, esqr., late a commissioner of the United States of 
America at the Court of Versailles, late Delegate in Congress from 
the State of Massachusetts, and chief justice of the said State, and 
Minister Plenipotentiary of the said United States to their High 
Mightinesses the States General of the United Netherlands; Ben- 
jamin Franklin, esq're, late Delegate in Congress from the State of 
Pennsylvania, president of the convention of the said State, and 
Minister Plenipotentiary from the United States of America at the 
Court of Versailles ; John Jay, esq're, late president of Congress, 
and chief justice of the State of New York, and Minister Plenipoten- 
tiary from the said United States at the Court of Madrid, to be the 
Plenipotentiaries for the concluding and signing the present defini- 
tive treaty ; who, after having reciprocally communicated their re- 
spective full powers, have agreed upon and confirmed the following 
articles : 

ARTICLE I. 

His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz. 
New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, and Providence 
Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 
Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and 
Georgia, to be free, sovereign and independent States ; that he 
treats with them as such, and for himself, his heirs and successors, 
relinquishes all claims to the Government, proprietary and territorial 
rights of the same, and every part thereof. 



ARTICLE II. 

And that all disputes which might arise in future, on the subject 
of the boundaries of the said United States may be prevented, it is 
hereby agreed and declared, that the following are, and shall be 
their boundaries, viz. : From the northwest angle of Nova Scot id, 
viz. that angle which is formed by a line drawn clue north from the 
source of Saint Croix River to the Highlands ; along the said High- 
lands which divide those rivers that empty themselves into the river 
St. Lawrence, from those which fall into the Atlantic Ocean, to the 
northwestern-most head of Connecticut River ; thence down along 
the middle of that river, to the forty-fifth degree of north latitude ; 






APPENDIX 585 

from thence, by a line due west on said latitude, until it strikes the 
river Iroquois or Cataraquy ; thence along the middle of said river 
into Lake Ontario, through the middle of said lake until it strikes 
the communication by water between that lake and Lake Erie ; 
thence along the middle of said communication into Lake Erie, 
through the middle of said lake until it arrives at the water com- 
munication between that lake and Lake Huron ; thence along the 
middle of said water communication into the Lake Huron ; thence 
through the middle of said lake to the water communication between 
that lake and Lake Superior ; thence through Lake Superior north- 
ward of the Isles Royal and Phelipeaux, to the Long Lake ; thence 
through the middle of said Long Lake, and the water communication 
between it and the Lake of the Woods, to the said Lake of the 
Woods ; thence through the said lake to the most northwestern 
point thereof, and from thence on a due west course to the river 
Mississippi ; thence by a line to be drawn along the middle of the 
said river Mississippi until it shall intersect the northernmost part of 
the thirty-first degree of north latitude. South, by a line to be 
drawn due east from the determination of the line last mentioned, in 
the latitude of thirty-one degrees north of the Equator, to the mid- 
dle of the river Apalachicola or Catahouche ; thence along the mid- 
dle thereof to its junction with the Flint River ; thence straight to 
the head of St. Mary's River ; and thence down along the middle of 
St. Mary's River to the Atlantic Ocean. East, by a line to be drawn 
along the middle of the river St. Croix, from its mouth in the Bay of 
Fundy to its source, and from its source directly north to the afore- 
said Highlands, which divide the rivers that fall into the Atlantic 
Ocean from those which fall into the river St. Lawrence ; compre- 
hending all islands within twenty leagues of any part of the shores 
of the United States, and lying between lines to be drawn due east 
from the points where the aforesaid boundaries between Nova Scotia 
on the one part, and East Florida on the other, shall respectively 
touch the Bay of Fundy and the Atlantic Ocean ; excepting such 
islands as now are, or heretofore have been, within the limits of the 
said province of Nova Scotia. 

ARTICLE III. 

It is agreed that the people of the United States shall continue to 
enjoy unmolested the right to take fish of every kind on the Grand 
Bank, and on all the other banks of Newfoundland ; also in the 



- ? ^ APPENDIX 

Gulph of Saint Lawrence, and at all other places in the sea where 
the inhabitants of both countries used at any time heretofore to fish. 
And also that the inhabitants of the United States shall have liberty 
to take fish of every kind on such part of the coast of Newfoundland 
as British fishermen shall use (but not to dry or cure the same on 
that island) and also on the coasts, bays, and creeks of all other of 
His Britannic Majesty's dominions in America ; and that the Amer- 
ican fishermen shall have liberty to dry and cure fish in any of the 
unsettled bays, harbours, and creeks of Nova Scotia, Magdalen 
Islands, and Labrador, so long as the same shall remain unsettled ; 
but so soon as the same or either of them shall be settled, it shall 
not be lawful for the said fishermen to dry or cure fish at such settle- 
ment, without a previous agreement for that purpose with the inhab- 
itants, proprietors, or possessors of the ground. 



ARTICLE IV. 

It is agreed that creditors on either side shall meet with no law- 
ful impediment to the recovery of the full value in sterling money, of 
all bona fide debts heretofore contracted. 



ARTICLE V. 

It is agreed that the Congress shall earnestly recommend it to 
the legislatures of the respective States, to provide for the restitu- 
tion of all estates, rights, and properties which have been confiscated, 
belonging to real British subjects, and also of the estates, rights, and 
properties of persons resident in districts in the possession of His 
Majesty's arms, and who have not borne arms against the said 
United States. And that persons of any other description shall 
have free liberty to go to any part or parts of any of the thirteen 
United States, and therein to remain twelve months, unmolested in 
their endeavours to obtain the restitution of such of their estates, 
rights, and properties as may have been confiscated ; and that Con- 
gress shall also earnestly recommend to the several States a recon- 
sideration and revision of all acts or laws regarding the premises, so 
as to render the said laws or acts perfectly consistent, not only with 
justice and equity, but with that spirit of conciliation which, on the 
return of the blessings of peace, should universally prevail. And 
that Congress shall also earnestly recommend to the several States, 



APPENDIX 587 

that the estates, rights, and properties of such last mentioned per- 
sons, shall be restored to them, they refunding to any persons who 
may now be in possession, the bona fide price (where any has been 
given) which such persons may have paid on purchasing any of the 
said lands, rights, or properties, since the confiscation. And it is 
agreed, that all persons who have any interest in confiscated lands, 
either by debts, marriage settlements, or otherwise, shall meet with 
no lawful impediment in the prosecution of their just rights. 



ARTICLE VI. 

That there shall be no future confiscations made, nor any prose- 
cutions commenc'd against any person or persons for, or by reason 
of the part which he or they may have taken in the present war; 
and that no person shall, on that account, suffer any future loss or 
damage, either in his person, liberty, or property ; and that those 
who may be in confinement on such charges, at the time of the rati- 
fication of the treaty in America, shall be immediately set at liberty, 
and the prosecutions so commenced be discontinued. 



ARTICLE VII. 

There shall be a firm and perpetual peace between His Britannic 
Majesty and the said States, and between the subjects of the one 
and the citizens of the other, wherefore all hostilities, both by sea 
and land, shall from henceforth cease : All prisoners on both sides 
shall be set at liberty, and His Britannic Majesty shall, with all con- 
venient speed, and without causing any destruction, or carrying 
away any negroes or other property of the American inhabitants, 
withdraw all his armies, garrisons, and fleets from the said United 
States, and from every port, place, and harbour within the same ; 
leaving in all fortifications the American artillery that may be 
therein : And shall also order and cause all archives, records, deeds, 
and papers, belonging to any of the said States, or their citizens, 
which, in the course of the war, may have fallen into the hands of 
the officers, to be forthwith restored and deliver'd to the proper 
States and persons to whom they belong. 



588 APPENDIX 



ARTICLE VIII. 

The navigation of the river Mississippi, from its source to the 
ocean, shall for ever remain free and open to the subjects of Great 
Britain, and the citizens of the United States. 



ARTICLE IX. 

In case it should so happen that any place or territory belonging 
to Great Britain or to the United States, should have been conquer'd 
by the arms of either from the other, before the arrival of the said 
provisional articles in America, it is agreed, that the same shall be 
restored without difficulty, and without requiring any compensation. 



ARTICLE X. 

The solemn ratifications of the present treaty, expedited in good 
and due form, shall be exchanged between the contracting parties, in 
the space of six months, or sooner if possible, to be computed from 
the day of the signature of the present treaty. In witness whereof, 
we the undersigned, their Ministers Plenipotentiary, have in their 
name and in virtue of our full powers, signed with our hands the 
present definitive treaty, and caused the seals of our arms to be 
affix'd thereto. 

Done at Paris, this third day of September, in the year of our 
Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-three. 



D. Hartley. 


(,.. 


s.) 


John Adams. 


(... 


s.) 


B. Franklin. 


(L. 


s.) 


John Jay. 


(L. 


s.) 



Ill 



GENERAL WASHINGTON'S ADDRESS TO CONGRESS ON 
RESIGNING HIS COMMISSION 

Annapolis, 23 December, 1783. 
Mr. Preside/it, 

The great events, on which my resignation depended, having at 
length taken place, I have now the honor of offering my sincere 
congratulations to Congress, and of presenting myself before them, 
to surrender into their hands the trust committed to me, and to 
claim the indulgence of retiring from the service of my country. 

Happy in the confirmation of our independence and sovereignty, 
and pleased with the opportunity afforded the United States of be- 
coming a respectable nation, I resign with satisfaction the appoint- 
ment I accepted with diffidence ; a diffidence in my abilities to 
accomplish so arduous a task, which, however, was superseded by a 
confidence in the rectitude of our cause, the support of the supreme 
power of the Union, and the patronage of Heaven. 

The successful termination of the war has verified the most san- 
guine expectations ; and my gratitude for the interposition of Provi- 
dence, and the assistance I have received from my countrymen, 
increases with every review of the momentous contest. 

While I repeat my obligations to the army in general, I should do 
injustice to my own feelings not to acknowledge, in this place, the 
peculiar services and distinguished merits of the gentlemen, who 
have been attached to my person during the war. It was impossible 
that the choice of confidential officers to compose my family shoirld 
have been more fortunate. Permit me, Sir, to recommend in partic- 
ular those, who have continued in service to the present moment, as 
worthy of the favorable notice and patronage of Congress. 

I consider it an indispensable duty to close this last solemn act of 
my official life, by commending the interests of our dearest country 

5 Sq 



590 APPENDIX 

to the protection of Almighty God, and those who have the superin. 
tendence of them to his holy keeping. 

Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the 
great theatre of action ; and, bidding an affectionate farewell to 
this august body, under whose orders I have so long acted, I here 
offer my commission, and take my leave of all the employments of 
public life. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Abercrombie, Colonel, 520 

Acland, 256 

"Actaeon," the, 130 

Adams, Mr, Henry, quoted, 540, 541 

Adams, John, 12, 65, 140, 144, 160, 167, 
306, 541; entry in the diary of, 2; a 
delegate at the first American Congress, 
7; at the second Congress, 54-57; pro- 
posed that George Washington be placed 
in command of the Continental Army, 
67; wished Congress to found a govern- 
ment, 142; his influence on public senti- 
ment, 152; his activity in Congress, 156; 
on a committee to draft a declaration of 
independence, 157; showed himself a 
"Colossus of Debate," 158; his criticism 
of the Declaration of Independence, 
172; sent by Congress to France, 272; 
complained of Washington's failures, 
301; on a peace commission, 532; arrival 
of, at Paris, 536; value of the diplo- 
matic services of, 539, 540 

Adams, Samuel, 59, 65, 66, 306; a dele- 
gate at the first American Congress, 7-9 ; 
known in England as a "very valiant 
rebel," 12; refuge of, in Lexington, 30; 
roused by Paul Revere, 32; persuaded 
by Revere to go to Woburn with Han- 
cock, 34; at the second American Con- 
gress, 54, 57; his radicalism, 151 

Aitken's Tavern, 284 

Alaska, 574 

Albany. 231, 279, 475 

Albert, Prince, 567 

Alleghanies, the, 331, 337 

Allen, Ethan, 113, 474; the capture of 
Fort Ticonderoga by, 62-64 

Amboy, 28 1 

Andre, Major, communications of Arnold 
with, 477, 478; interview of, with Ar- 
nold, 479; accepted papers from Arnold, 
480; the capture of, 481 et seq. ; the fate 
of, 489, 490 

Annapolis, 499, 550 

Anne, Fort, 233 

Arbuthnot, Admiral. 362, 363, 364. 500 

Armand, Colonel, 376 

Armstrong, General, 126 et seq. 

Armstrong, John, injustice to the Conti- 
nental Army deplored by, 545 

Arnold, Benedict, 201, 261: 414', 481, 482, 
490, 491, 493, 500; march of, to Quebec, 
106; the attack on (hiebec, 108; at Yal- 
cour, 228; joined Schuyler, 234; rumor 
of his advance to relieve Gansevoort, 
241; rejoined Schuyler, 242: at Bemis's 
Heights, 250, 251; relieved of his com- 



mand by Gates, 255; showed his cour- 
age, 256; account of, 473 et seq.; his 
traitorous negotiations with the British, 
477 et seq.; Jamieson's letter despatched 
to, 483; the "flight of, 484-487; Washing- 
ton's great disappointment in, 488; ser- 
vices of, to England, 489; expedition of, 
into Virginia, 498, 499; sent back to 
New York, 5112 

Arnold, Airs. Benedict, 477, 484; the fail- 
ure of her husband's plot revealed to 
her, 484 

.Articles of Confederation, the, 328 

Ashe, 356 

Assanpink, 217 

Augusta, Fla., 364; taken by Campbell, 
355. 356; besieged by Lee and Pickens, 
432; the surrender of, 433 

Austria, 271, 554, 555 

Auvergne, the regiment of, at Vorktown, 
519. 520 

"Backwater men," the, 385 et seq. 

Baltimore, 501; adjournment of Congress 
to, 207; a Hessian flag presented to, 212 

Barren Hill, 316 

Batten Kill, the, 256 

Baum, Colonel, sent out by Burgoyne on 
a marauding expedition, 242; at the 
battle of Bennington, 243 et seq.; mor- 
tally wounded, 244 

Beaufort, 355, 357 

Beaumarchais, attitude of, toward Amer- 
ica, 267; authorized to supply merchan- 
dise to America, 268 

Bedford County, 505 

Bell's Mills. 419 

Bemis's Heights, 249, 250 

Bennington, 60, 249, 258, 261; the battle 
of, 243-247; the victory of, 24.K 

"Black Snake." 457 

Blanca, Florida, 330 

Blandford, 502 

Board of War, the, 310, 311 

Boone, Daniel, 334, 381 

Boston, 53, 54. 65. 67/68, 70. 71, 73. 77, 78, 
79, 81, 98, 103, tog, 118, 135, 137, 143, 
145. 150, 154. 156, 180, 184, 225, 324, 
3-6, 353. 400. 514, 522, 550; riots in, 
26: the march of Lieut. -Colonel Smith 
from, 34; an attack on. proposed by 
Washington, no; the victory over the 
British in. 113. t 14 

Boston Xeck, 41, 110; fortified by Gage, 
29 

Bowman, warned the minute men at Lex- 
ington, 35 



593 



594 



INDEX 



Braddock, General, u, 279 

Brandywine, the, 290, 299, 300, 323, 400; 

the battle of, 284 et seq. 
Bratton, Colonel, 371, 372 
Brattonsville, 371 
Breed's Hill, 84, 90, 95, 98; fortified by 

the Americans, 74 
Brest, 472 
Breymann, Colonel, 242: came to Baum's 

relict at Bennington, 247; killed in 

battle, 258 
Bright, lolm, 567 
Bristol, 208 

"Bristol," the, 129, [30 
Broad River, 10 1, 406 
Bronx, the, 198 
Brooklyn Heights, 189, 190, 191; fortified, 

184 
Brown, ( olonel, attack of, on Ticonderoga, 

250 
Brunswick, 221, -'_'-\ 281 
Brunswickers, 242, 247, 256 
Bunkei Hill, 1)7, 115. 116, 130, 138, 145, 

140. [80, 242. 248, 266, 460, 522, 530; 

the order to occupy and fortify issued, 

74; the battle ft, 81 et Seq.J seizure of, 

by the British, 90; the significance of 
the battle of. 90 et seq.; the hisses at, 
92, 9.1; news of, brought to Washington, 
98 

l'.urdcll s plantation, 439 

Burgoyne, Sir John, 71. 270. 2-2, 278. 279. 
280, 291, 299, 31.... 3,,,. 302, 306. 331. 353. 
,i7o- 374. 399. 4"o, 449, 475; character 
ot. 229. 230; delayed by Schuyler, 134 
236; decision of, to raid the country, 
242; the blow dealt him at Bennington, 
248, 249; at the battle of Freeman's 
Farm, 250, 251: determined to stand Ins 
ground, 255; a disastrous battle, 256; 
his conditional surrender, 258; the fail- 
ure of his expedition, 261, 2112; signifi- 
cance of the surrender of, 2(14 e1 seq ; 
news of, received in England, 2<><j: con- 
junction of. with Howe, feared by 
Washington, 281, 282 

Burke, Edmund, 15. 10, 93, 567 

Burr, to? 

Butler, Colonel, 459. 504 

Buttrick, Major, at Concord, 45 

Cabinet, the British, the two factions in, 
. 530, 531 

( adwalader, General, at Trenton, 208; 
duel of Conway with, 311 

Cahokia, 344. 3 45 

( ambridge, .^2. 42, 98, 141, 474: the out- 
break at. 28, 29; excitement in the 
camp at, 80; the condition of the Amer- 
ican army at. 87; the arrival of Wash- 
ington at, 100 

Camden, 03, 146, 392, 393, 396, 401, 408, 
417. 427. 428, 431, 432, 567; the ad- 
vance of Gates on. 375; the engagement 

al. 376-378; reasons for the defeat. 379 
1 ampbell, Lord William, ('olonel, 123, 
124; urged attacking Charleston, 126; 
Savannah captured by. 354; the- severity 
of. 355; Augusta taken by. 355 
Campbell, William. 382, 420. 427; took 

command of an expedition, 383 et seq. 
Canada, 142. 143. 144. 225. jjH. 229, 241, 249, 
70; expeditions i< '. 166 1 t seq. : de- 
feat of the attempts to Lot possession of, 

10c,; enlistment of Canadians on the side 
of the British, 230; failure of the plan 
for the invasion of, 311; Arnold's expe- 



dition to, 474; the cession of, suggested 
by Franklin to Great Britain, 533 

Cane Creek, 383 

Canning, ( leorge, 563 

Cape Fear River, 126 

Carleton, 185, 230, jsj. 248, 475; the vic- 
tory of, 108; retreat of, from Crown 
Point. 201; advance of, down the Hud- 
son, jjX; superseded by Burgoyne, 229; 
successor to Clinton, 530 

Carlisle, Lord, 316 

Carolinas, the, 374, 380, 381, 393, 432, 
505; loyalists in. 123; civil war in, 354 
Carpenters, tile Hall id' the, 4 

Castine, 467 

Caswell, 123, 155, 375, 377 

Catawba River, the. 372. 383, 401, 411 

Catherine, Queen of Russia, 181 

Chad's Ford, 284, 287, 288 

Champlain, Lake, 475; Burgoyne's expedi- 
tion on, j^2 

Charles I., 14, id, 172 

Charles II.. 26 

Charleston, 135, 158, 159, 180, 225, 282, 
356, .?"'• 367. 3<>9. i7-. .173, 383, 408, 
426, 431. 434.. 435. 436- 439. 47":_the arrival 
of the British at, 129; the fortification 
of, 128: attacked by Parker, 131; move- 
ment of Clinton on, 362; evacuated, 
442 

Charlestown, fortified by the American 
troops, 73 et seq.; set fire to by the 
British, 83 

Charlestown Xeck. .^,2, 73; advance of the 
British upon, 78 et seq. 

Charlotte, 375, 377, 379, 385, 392, 395, 
390. 445 

Chatham, Lord, 93, 146, 5O7; words ot, 
with regard to the papers transmitted 
li\ the American Congress, 20, 21. See 
Pitt, William 

Chatterton's Hill, 198 

(berry Valley, 327 

Chesapeake, the, 126, 282, 500, 508, 509, 
512. 513, 514 

Chester. 288, 289 

Chew house, the, 291, 295 

Choate, Rufus, 176 

Church of England, the, opposition in 
Massachusetts to the establishment of, 
26; loyalist clergymen of, 152 

Civil War, the, 597, 573, 574 

Clark, his criticism of Washington, 306 

Clark, General (ieorge Rogers, 353, 381; 
the plan of, for carrying war into Illi- 
nois, 337; received Henry's encourage- 
ment, 338; the attack of, on Kaskaskia, 
339 343; won Kaskaskia over to the 
American cause. 344: implored by the 
French not to go away, 345: news oi 
Hamilton's approach brought to. 546; 
the attack of. on Hamilton at vin- 
cennes, 347, 351; significance of his vic- 
tory. 352 

( larke, 380 

Clarke. Sir Francis, 258 

Cleaveland, Colonel, 383, 386 

Clermont, 375 

( h \ eland, Mr., 566 

Clinton. George, at the second Congress, 
58 

Clinton. Sir Henry, 71. 116, 279, 326, 327, 
369, 399. 460, 468, 477- 47"- 4 s (. W<>, 
493, t'O 499. 5°o, 5°i. 505. 5<>8, 509: 
advice ot. to Howe. 90: in command of 
the British campaign in the South. 125 
et seq.; made a proclamation, 128; his 



INDEX 



595 



manoeuvres at Fort Sullivan, i.'9 et seq. ; 
his troops in a useless position, 133; 
his departure from South Carolina, 134; 
plan of, to meet Burgoyne on the 1 Uni- 
son, 229; started from New York, -'55; 
given the British command, 315; delays 
of, 316; the battle of Monmouth, 318 et 
seq.; his retreat, 323; his losses, 324; 
movement of, toward Charleston, 362; 
the proclamation of, 304: the assertion 
of, with regard to South Carolina, 367; 
Stony Point fortified by, 456; move- 
ment of, into New Jersey, 470: his lack 
of troops, 471: expeditions sent by, into 
Virginia, 498, 499; alarmed, 511; per- 
mitted Graves to go South, 51-'; in- 
formed that the situation at Vorktown 
was desperate, 519; tardy arrival of, to 
aid Cornwallis, 522; his official report 
of the defeat at Vorktown, 529; suc- 
ceeded by Carleton, 530 

Clinton. Fort, 25$ 

Clive, 399 

Clove, Long, 479 

Cobden, Richard, 567 

Coffin, 439 

Collier, Sir George, 467 

Concord, 50, 59, 90, 138, 180. 527, 553, 
559; munitions of war stored at, 31; the 
town warned by Prescott, 32 ; the ap- 
proach of the British toward, 40; no 
stores found there, 42; the fight at the 
bridge, 44, 45 

Congaree River, the, 432, 439 

Congress, the first American, 559; dele- 
gates at, 4-12; Declaration of Rights 
adopted by, 20; the meaning of the Con- 
gress, 21-24: adjournment of, 25; con- 
servatism of, 1 5 1 

Congress, the second American, meeting 
of, 57, 64; problems confronting, 59, 65 
et seq.; delegates from Georgia in, 124 

Congress, 208, 249; demands of. on 
Washington, 110; responsibility resting 
on, 130-143; adjournment of, 143; reas- 
sembled, 144; letter of Washington to, 
145; appointed a committee on Foreign 
Relations. 149; demanded that Boston 
be taken at once, 150; the movement in, 
to gain the independence of the colonies, 
155 et seq.; appointed a committee to 
draft the Declaration of Independence, 
157; a plan for the destruction of New 
York submitted to, 195; lack of fore- 
sight and determination in, 205; ad- 
journment of, to Baltimore, 207; failed 
to support Schuyler. 232: selected Gates 
to take Schuyler's place, 248; diplo- 
matic attempts of, to get foreign assist- 
ance, 265 et seq.; authorized Arthur 
Lee to ascertain the attitude of Europe 
toward America, 266; appointed Deane 
an agent to France, 267; sent Franklin 
to I'aris, 268; sent John Adams to 
France, 272; flight of, from Philadel- 
phia. 290; failed to appreciate Washing- 
ton, 300 et seq.; carping and fault- 
finding in, 306 et seq.; its attitude tow- 
ard foreigners in the army, 309; the 
Conway party in, 310; visit of a commit- 
tee of, to Valley Forge, 311; intrigues 
in, 313; produced the Articles of Con- 
federation, 328; a distressing spectacle, 
329; sent Benjamin Lincoln South, 355; 
its choice of a general for the army in 
the South, 374; allowed Washington 
to select a commander, 393; granted 



Greene's demands, 394; ignored Mor- 
gan, 401; activity in, 451; discussion of 
the terms of peace, 452, 453; tailure of, 
to support Washington, 409; bitter let- 
ters of Washington to, 472; at last gave 
Arnold a commission, 475; Arnold ac- 
quitted of Reed's charges by a commit- 
tee of, 477; again indifferent to Wash- 
ington, 492; method of, of quelling a 
mutiny, 493; inefficiency of , 493 ; Morris 
made Superintendent of Finances by, 
495; frightened by another mutiny, 507; 
told by Washington of the possibility of 
his moving southward, 509; plan of, to 
reduce the army, 513; a peace commis- 
sion selected by, 532; the instructions 
of, violated by Franklin, 541; Washing- 
ton aided by, in increasing the army, 
543; warned of danger by Washington, 
544; injustice of, to the army, 544, 545; 
listened to the appeal of Washington, 
546; Washington's commission returned 
to, 550 

Congress, the Provincial, of Massachusetts, 
desire of, for peace and union, 29; ad- 
journment of, 30; sent a letter to Eng- 
land, 53; its demands on Washington, 
1 1 o 

Connecticut, 53, 59, 106, 267, 502, 507; 
rights of, discussed in Congress, 145; 
expedition of Tryon into, 455 

Connecticut River, 242 

Conway, 320; weaver of a plot against 
Washington, 309-3 1 1 

Conway, motion of, in Parliament, against 
continuing the American war, 530 

Cooper River, the, 435 

Copley, the portrait of Samuel Adams 
by, 7 

Copp's Hill, 78 

Cornwallis, Lord, 288, 299, 372, 380, 382, 
385, 390, 391. 395, 39", 401. 406, 408, 
428. 441, 449- 501. 5.05. 507, 508, 509, 511, 
543; the landing of, in .North Carolina, 
126; at Newton and Princeton. 217-222; 
crossed the Brandywine, 2S7; marched 
into Philadelphia, 290; at Charleston, 
364; at Camden, 376 et seq.; forced to 
abandon his northern march, 393; an 
efficient commander, 399; his southern 
campaign against Greene, 410-426; the 
movements forced upon him by Greene, 
496 et seq. ; evaded by Lafayette, 502- 
504; intrenched himself at Vorktown. 
505; shut in at Yorktown, 515; at the 
siege of Yorktown, 516 et seq.; sur- 
render of, 525 

Cornwallis, Fort, 432 

Cowpens, the, 385, 401, 408, 410, 412, 
445: the victory at the, 404-406 

Creasy, Sir Edward, 2b$ 

Creoles, 340, 345, 347 

Crosswicks, 319 

Crown Point, 201, 228; capture of, 63 

Cruger. 380. 390, 433. 434. 435 

Currency, paper, 454 



Damas, Count de, 519 

Dan River. 411, 414, 415, 417 

Davidson, 369, 412 

Davie, 369 

Dawes, William, warned Lexington of the 

approach of the British, 32-34 
Dean, John. 4S ; 
Deane, Silas, 156, 309; appointed an agent 

to France, 267; attacked by Lee, 268; 



596 



INDEX 



received by Vergennes, 270; his place 

taken by John Adams, 272 
Dearborn, 256 
De lianas, 507, 512, 514; his idlings in- 

jured, 509; conciliated, 510 
Di Bonvouloir sent secretly to America, 

266 
De Grasse, 507. 510, 511, 512, 516, 543: letter 

of, saying that he would co-operate in a 

movement against Cornwallis, 508, 509; 

appeal of Washington to, 514 

De Kail), 268, 309; sent South by Wash- 
ington, 373; the death of, 377 

Deep River, 425 

he Peyster, 389, 390 

lv- Rochambeau, 507, 508, 510; in New- 
port, 471, 472; at Hartford, 473; oppo- 
sition of, ti> a plan of Washington's, 
506; visit of, to Mount Vernon with 
W ashington, 5 1 4 

Delaplace, surrender of. at Ticonderoga, 
63 

Delaware, 395; in favof of the indepen- 
dence of the colonies, 157. 158 

Delaware River, 2117, 208, 282, 205, 327 
acy, the significance of the Revo- 
lution, as the beginning of a movement 
actuated b) the spirit of, 552 et seq. 

I (emont, William, 200 

Derby, Lord. 221) 

D'Estaing, appeared off New York, 325, 
514; al Newport, 326; captured four 
men-of-war, 357; his brave attack on 
Savannah, 358 

Detroit, 144. 332, 34"- 34". 3S 1 

Deux l'onts, Count de, 519 

Dickenson, 520 

Dickinson, John, 144, 140, 156. 159; the 
address to the King drawn up by, 20; 

leader of a movement to set tin grie\ 

ances of tin- colonies before Great Brit- 
ain, and before certain American colo- 
nies, 67; drafted a second petition t<; 
the King. 140; the "farmer's Letters," 
152; bis conservatism, 158 

Dillon, Count. 34 

Dobb's berry, 198 

Donop, Count, 206 

Dorchester. Lord, 562 

Dorchester Heights, the plan of the British 
to seize. 7.*; the plan given up, 90; 
works thrown up on, 113 

Dunmore, Lord, flight of. from Virginia, 
[21-123; "Lord Dunmoie's War," 400 

East Florida, 354 

East River, 184, [96 

Edward; Fort, 233; arrival of Burgoyne 

at. 235; Stark at. 258 
Elk River, the, 284, 299, 500 
Elk, Head of, 511 

Elliott, British Minister at Berlin, 271 
England, passim; gave more to America 

than she intended, 541; tin Reform Bill 

passed by. 555; the effect of American 

independence on, 560 et seq. 
English Channel, the. 450 
Europe, passim; attitude of. toward Amer- 

ounded by Congress, 266 et seq. 
Eutaw Springs. 445; the battle of, 439, 

440; results of the battle. )|i 
I '.wing, 208 
"Experiment," the, 129, 130 

FABIUS, the word applied to Washington, 

301. 306, 321 
Falmouth destroyed by the British, 121 



"Farmer, the Westchester," 152 

"farmer's Letters," the, 152 

Febiger, Colonel. 459 

Ferguson, Patrick, ^jy, 380, 381, 384, 
391; at the battle of King's .Mountain, 
385 300; death of, 390 

Fisheries. See Newfoundland 

Fishing Creek. 371 

Fishkill River, the, 25S 

Fitzherbert, 539 

Flint Hill, 384, 385, 386 

Florida, 353, 508; plan of Washington to 
m\ade, 506, 507 

Florida, East, 129 

Floridas, the. 573 

"Flying Machine," the, 2 

Ford, 427 

Fordham, 198 

Forrest, at Trenton, 217 

box. Charles, 424. 530, 531, 532, 533, 534. 540, 
558 

1- ranee. 330. $j(: 528, 535. 539, 540, 541. 562, 
575; hold of, lost on North America, 
12, 2(.i,; efforts of, to sound the Govern- 
ment of America, 266 et seq.; the atti- 
tude of, toward America, 209 et seq.; 
two treaties made with America, 270; 
in Voltaire's time, 276 et seq. ; money 
borrowed in, 329; desire of, for peace, 
450, 451; negotiations of Franklin with, 
533. 534: meddled with the conditions 
of peace, 536; resolution in, 553. 551. 555. 
557. 5<>o 

Franklin, Benjamin, 1. 140, 160, [67, 267, 
315, 457; the European reputation of, 
u; the influence of, 57, 58; his plan 
for a confederate government, 142; on a 
committee in Congress, 145; appointed 
on a committee to draft the Declaration 
of Independence, 157; interview of De 
Bonvouloir with, 266; on a commission 
sent to France, 208; encouraged by Ver- 
gennes, 269, 270; received with Voltaire 
by the blench Academy, 272; Voltaire 
and Franklin, 275; coldly received by 
King Loins, 277; diplomatic negotiations 
of, with England, 552 et seq.; the tri- 
umph of, 540, 541 

Franklin, Governor William, 14(1; arrested, 

157 
Franklin, 1 ennessee, 381 
1'raser, 250. 251; mortally wounded. 25(1; 

buried in an intrenebment, 258 
Frederick »i Prussia, 12, 125, 182, 223, 

264, 271, 7,14 

Freehold, 319 

Freeman's barm, the battle of, 250. 251; 
the loss on both sides, 252; results of 
the battle, 255; Arnold at, 475 

French, the. 329, 53". 347. 357- 358, 430. 
448, 471. 472. 49". 499. 5"". 505. 507, 
511, 512, 515, 516; at Newport, 525-527; 
settlements of, on the western frontier of 

the Colonies, .557: ;'t Kaskaskia, 550 

et seq.; their unwillingness p, have 
(lark leave them. 545; their desertion, 
346; at Vincennes, 348 et seq.; at Yolk- 
town, 5 hi et seq. 

Freneau, 152 

Gadsden, Christopher, 4; in command 

of a regiment in South Carolina. 1 27 
Cage. General, 116; bis efforts to quell the 
uprising m Boston, 28-30; gave his at- 
tention to Smith's appeal. 10; inc onsis 
tency of, 71; called a council ot war, 
78; taught a lesson by Washington, 110 



INDEX 



597 



Gansevoort, Colonel, attacked in Fort 
Stanwix, 239; refused to surrender, 241 

Gates, Horatio, 30b, 394, 390, 401, 414, 
448, 475; appointed Adjutant-General, 
68; came to Washington's aid, 208; se- 
lected to supersede Schuyler, 248; his 
large army, 249; the battle of Freeman's 
Farm, 250, 251; quarrel of, with Arnold, 
255; engaged Burgoyne, 256; did not 
insist on unconditional surrender, 258; 
grotesque comparisons between him and 
Washington, 300 et seq.; at the head 
of a Board of War, 310; sent North 
again, 311; selected by Congress to com- 
mand the army in the South, 374; his 
decision to advance on Camden, 375; at 
Camden, 376-379 

George III., 10, 11, 15, 16, 22, 140, 183, 
269, 271, 277. 530, 544; his decision to 
attack the Southern colonies, 125; re- 
fused to receive the bearer of a petition 
from Congress, 146; his proclamation, 
149; a tyrant, 172; attempts of, to obtain 
mercenaries, 181, 182: had directed that 
Indians be employed, 231; his obstinacy, 

5 -'9 

George, Lake, 235, 250 

Georgetown, 367 

Georgia, 355- 364. 372, 436, 448, 506; 
representative of, in the second Conti- 
nental Congress, 66; at the outbreak of 
the Revolution, 124. 125; conquest of, 
planned by the British, 353, 354; the 
English left by Lincoln in complete 
possession of. 357; the British policy of 
devastation in, 301; in the control of 
the enemy. 432; Wayne in, 442 

Gerard, sent as minister to the LInited 
States, 270; activity of, among members 
of Congress, 452 

Germain, Lord George, 248. 255, 279; 
planned a campaign, 230; the southern 
British campaign planned by, 353, 354; 
left the Cabinet, 5,30 

Germans in the British army, 182, 230, 

Germantown, 289, 300, 3^3, 324, 460; 
General Howe at, 618 et seq.; with- 
drawal of Howe from, 623 

Germany, 554, 555, 568 

Gibraltar, 450, 539 

( iilbertown, 384 

Gladstone, .Mr., 566 

Gloucester, 505, 515, 521, 525 

Glover, 198, 21 1 

Gordon, Dr., 41 

Gowanus Creek. 190 

Granby, Fort, 432 

( '.raves. Admiral, 5 1 1 

Great Lakes, the, 330, 352 

Greece, 555 

Green an authority on George III., 172 

Green Spring, 505 

Greene, Colonel, at Fort Mercer, 296 

Greene, Nathaniel, 199, 299, 315, 319, 406, 
432. 448, 470, 473, 500, 501, 502, 506, 543; 
appointed Brigadier-General, 68; in com- 
mand 011 Long Island, 189; declared 
Fort Washington impregnable, 200; 
joined Washington with his army, 202; 
the attack on Trenton, 211, 212; at 
Chad's Ford, 288; at Germantown, 291, 
j<)j; at Philadelphia, 299; became Quar- 
termaster-General, 314; at Newport, 325. 
32(1; Washington's choice of, not in- 
dorsed by Congress, 374; selected as 
commander by Washington with the ap- 



proval of Congress, 393; his demands 
granted, 394; his preparations for a 
southern campaign, 305 et seq.; gave 
Morgan a separate command, 401; his 
campaign in the South. 409 et seq.; his 
ride in search of Morgan, 411; Ins ef- 
forts to prevent the advance of Cornwal- 
lis southward, 412-425; determined to 
accept battle, 419; the battle at Guilford 
Court House, 420-424; decided on a new 
movement, 426; attacked at Hobkirk's 
Hill by Lord Kawdon. 427, 428; results of 
the southward movement, 431; attack of, 
on Ninety-six, 433, 434; withdrawal of, to 
the hills of the Santee, 435; angry at the 
execution of Colonel llayne. 436; at the 
battle of Eutaw Springs, 439, 440; rein- 
forced by Wayne, 441 ; the evacuation 
of Charleston, 442; the end of his ad- 
mirable campaign, 445-447; tribute of 
Wayne to, 447; treatment of Congress 
of, 477; his movement in forcing Corn- 
wallis north, 496-498 

Grenville, Thomas, 533, 534 

Grey, General, attack of, on Wayne, 290 

Gridley, 74 

Grierson, Fort, 432 

Grimaldi, 271 

Guilford, 412, 427, 441, 445, 501; the 
battle at, 4 19-424 

Guilford Court House, 419 

Gunby, Colonel, 427 

Gunning, 1S1 

Hadrell's Point, 127 

Hall, Lyman, in the second Continental 
Congress, 66 

Hamilton, Alexander, 318, 396, 484, 487, 
571, 574; the arguments of. for the in- 
dependence of the Colonies, 152; his 
description of Valley Forge, 305; at 
Yorktown, 519 

Hamilton, Henry, the "hair-buyer," 332, 
333; news of the invasion of Illinois 
brought to, 345; went to meet Clark, 
346; attacked by Clark at Vincennes, 
347-35 1; made prisoner, 352 

Hampton attacked by Lord Dunmore, 122 

Hancock, John, 59; refuge of, in Lexing- 
ton, 30; roused by Paul Revere. 32; per- 
suaded to go to Woburn with Samuel 
Adams, 34; a delegate at the second 
American Congress, 54, 58; president of 
the second Congress, 65, 66 

Hand. 212; at the battle of Trenton, 217 

Hanging Rock. 372 

Harlem Heights, 196, 197 

Harrison, Benjamin, a member of the sec- 
ond Continental Congress, 66; on a 
committee, 145 

Hartford, 473 

Haverstraw, 479 

Haw River, the, 419 

Hayne, Colonel, 43b 

Hazlewood, Commodore, 296 

Heath, General, 52, 68, 511 

Heister, 189 

Helm, 346 

Henry, Patrick, 10, 12, 18; at the first 
Congress. 8, 9; at the second Congress, 
57; encouraged Clark, 338 

Herkimer, General, 261 ; expedition of, to 
relieve Fort Stanwix, 239 et seq.; mor- 
tally wounded, 239 

Herrick, 243 

Hessians, 183, 205, 208, 242, 261, 296, 
-99. 439, 464, 470; obtained by King 



59 8 



[NDEX 



George, iS_>; at Trenton, 212 et seq.; 

at the battle of Bennington, J43 et seq. 

See (lermans 
Highlanders, the, in North Carolina, 123; 

uprisings of, 155 
Hillsborough, 378, 401, 417 
Hobkirk's Hill, 427, 428, 441. 445 
Holland, attempt of King George to obtain 

mercenaries in, 181; an effort "i ( on 

gress tn sound the attitude of. j68; re- 

fused to aid England, 271; war made 

by England on, 45J 

lb. 1st. m, 339, 381, 3 S -' 

II 1. 511, 5 1 -• 

Hopewell, 318 

Hopkins, 4 

Hopkinson, 152 

Horse Shoe Plain, 348 

Howard, John Eager, .596, 399, 405 

Howe, K"bert, the retaliatory expedition 
of, .554 

Howe, General Sir William, 71, 116, 185, 
215, 270, 279, 290, 3"-'. .!".;■ .i-'.i. 399! 
called tor reinforcements, So: in com 
maud of the British advance on Bunker 
Hill. Xi e1 seq.; the evacuation of Bos- 
ton, 114: advance of the British on New 
York. 1S4 et seq.; landing of, at Kip's 
Bay, i'ii'; movement of, toward Fort 
Washington, 109: the capture of Fort 
Washington, 200, 201; plan of, to unite 
with Carleton on the Hudson, 228, 229; 
tlu- instructions directing him to join 
Burgovne delayed, -'30; his movements 
after "the battle of Princeton, 281 et 
seq ; crossed the Brandywine, 287; met 
b) Washington at West Chester, 289; 
practically besieged, 295; opened tire on 
Fori Mifflin, 296; in full possession of 
Philadelphia, 299; avoided by Washing- 
ton at Whitemarsh, 300; recalled, 315; 
ovation to, in Philadelphia, 316; the ap- 
pearance of, at Newport, 326 

Huck, Captain, 37-'; attacked by Colonel 
Bratton, 371 

Hudson River, 50, jj<>. 249, 258, 264, 269, 
279, 281, 44 s - 460. 47<>. 47 s - 400, 55 6 . 
578, 586; the fight for the Hudson. 184- 
201; determination of Washington to 
keep the line of. open, 449, 455, 468; 
failure of the first British campaign for, 
557: the second attempt for, 557 

I [ugei . -)m. 1 1 -• 



ILLINOIS, 337. 345. 34t>; (.'lark in-.tir.eted 
to invade. 338; the news ..f the invasion 
brought to Hamilton, 345 

Independence, the Declaration of, 265, 
268; a committee appointed to draft. 
157; the work of preparing the draft 
intrusted to Jefferson, 157, [60; sub- 
mitted to Congress and published, 167; 
read P. the army under Washington, 
168; misplaced criticisms of, 108 et seq.; 
the spun of the Declaration, [76-179 

Indians, the, [06, 183, 234, 242, 244, 261, 

345. 381. 390, 4 43J, 44-'. 457. 5''-': ill 

1. iu's army, 230-232; the murder 
oi \hss \K( lea, 235, 236; at Fort Stan- 
wix, 236 it seq.; rlight of, from Fort 
Stanwix, 241; on the western frontier 
..f the Colonies, 331 et seq.; couriers 
sent out to alarm the, 345: their return 
to British allegiance, 346; at Vincennes, 
348 et seq.; the confederacy of the 
Indians with the British broken by 



(lark in the west, 352; expedition of 
Sullivan against, 468 

Italy. 550 

I ac km>\. 503 

Jamaica I 'lain, 30 

lames, Major, 367, 369 

lames River, the. 471, 505 

Jamicsoti, Colonel, 487; conduct of, with 
reference to Major Andre, 48.', 483 

Japan, 556 

Jasper. Sergeant. 130 

Jay. John, 541. 562; at the first American 
Congress, 4; address to the people of 
Great I'.ritain drawn up by, jo; at the 
second Congress. 57; advised the de- 
struction of New York, 195; sent as 
envoy to Spam. 453: a peace commis- 
sioner, 53-'; message of Franklin to, 
533: his strong stand on the question 
of the Mississippi, 535, 539; desired Par- 
liament to acknowledge the indepen- 
dence "f the Colonies, 535; made the 
draft of the treatj of Paris, 53b; value 
of his diplomatic services, 540 

Jefferson, Thomas, 50. 158. 168, 171; in 
the second Congress, 00; on the com- 
mittee to draft the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, 157, 160; Ins character, 160- 
1(14; his blow at the royal power, [72; 
his imagination and foresight, 175; the 
spirit of the Declaration, 176-179; inter- 
view of Greene with, 395; his efforts to 
prepare for the defence of Virginia, 499; 
escape of. from Tarleton, 503: efforts 
of, to bring about close relations be- 
tween England and the United States, 
562; the Louisiana purchase, 573 

Jersey City, 4(13 

Jerseys, the, 491. See New Jersey 

Johnson, moved that Washington be made 
Commander-in-chief, by 

Johnson, lot. 

Johnson, Sir John, 155 

Johnson, Fort, 1 -~ 

Jones, John Paul, 450 

Junius, tlu- letters of, 15 

Kaskaskia, 345, 346, 348; the capture of, 
339, 340; the departure of Clark from. 

347 

Kenton, \^^; I lark aided by. 330 

Kentucky, 333. 337, 381, 572; tin- pioneers 
of, 334 et seq.; Clark authorized to go 
to tile relief of, 338 

klllgsln idge, I 8 1 

King's Ferry, 255, 456, 468 

King's .Mountain. ,V)~. .',<);•■■ 305. 406, 408, 
410. 4<)S; the battle of, 385-390; decisive- 
ness of the battle. |g I 

Kingston. 255 

Kip's Bay, 196, 107. 467 

Knowlton, Colonel, at Charlestown, 80; 

the death of, 196 

Knox, 1 lenry, 1 13, 487 

Knyphausen, 519, 470; at Chad's Ford, 

287, -'88 
Kosciusko, 268, 417 

Lafayette, 487. 512, 514; determined to 

enlist in the American cause, 268; aided 
Green, 299; his description of Valley 
Forge, 305; his enthusiasm. 309; the at- 
tempt of Howe to surprise, 316; dis- 
placed by l.ee. 310; sent to Sullivan's 
aid, 325; detached to pursue Arnold, 

499, 500; march of, to Richmond, 501; 



INDEX 



599 



evasion of Cornwallis by, 502-504; at the 
battle of Green Spring, 505; given com- 
mand of a redoubt, 519 
Lameth, Chevalier de, 519 
Lancaster, 290 
Langdon, Samuel, 74 

Laurens. John, 442; letter of Washington 
to, 494; at Vorktovvn, 519; on a peace 
commission, 532; inserted a clause relat- 
ing to slaves in the Paiis treaty, s SQ 
Lauziin. the Due de, 515, 516, 528 
Lawson, 419 
Learned. 251, 256 
Lechmere Point, 34 

Le TTr y ' W- ''' ' an authorit y °" George 
Ledyard, Colonel, 502 

Lee. Arthur. 330; 'authorized by Congress 
to ascertain the attitude of Europe tow- 
ard America. 266; interviewed by Beau- 
marchais, 207; misrepresented Deane 
268; considerately treated in Berlin 271 
Lee, General Charles, 68, 158, 207- 'pro- 
nounced a fort in South Carolina use- 
less, 126; urged building a bridge for 
his troops to retreat over, 127; captured 
205; Gates compared to him, 249; his 
one conviction, 318; his conduct at the 
battle of Monmouth, 319, ^o 
Lee. Henry, 396, 399, 4,6^ 417,' 4,8, 420, 423, 
426, 428. 431, 435, 44I , 445> 446j 
authorized to raise a regiment of caval- 
ry- 394.. 3951 Fort Granby taken by, 
432; arrival of, at Ninety-six, 4 ;r his 
attack. 434; at the battle of Eutaw 
.springs 440; attack of, on Paulus 
Hook, 463-467 
Lee, Richard Henry, ,58. 306; at the first 
American Congress, 7; at the second 
Congress, 57; motion of, for the inde- 
pendence of the Colonies, 156 
Lee, Fort, 199; evacuated, 202 
Leitch, Major, 196 
Leslie, Colonel, 29, 498 

Lexington, 50, 59, 90, 150, 151, 474 , r=r q - 
expedition of the British to, discovered' 
31; the ride of Revere 10,32; advance of 

M A nt J Sh r t °, Wai $ 34, 35; the first 
bloodshed of the Revolution at, 36; the 
march of Lord Percy through, 42 
Light Horse Harry." See Lee, Henry 

Lincoln, Benjamin, 369, 372, 373, " 40 8 
521, 525: his movements in the rear of 
Burgoyne 250; in Georgia, 355 et sen.; 
failure of to reach Prevost, 357; with- 
drawal of, to Charleston. 361; his de- 
cision to wait for the British at Charles- 
ton, 362 et seq.; made a prisoner of 
war, 364 

Lisle, Colonel, 372 

Little Catawba River, the, 406 

Little Egg Harbor, <j 7 

■"Lively," the, 77 

Livingston, Robert, at the second Amer- 

draft th ngr n S, i 58 i ° n ? committee to 
diaft the Declaration of Independence 

t IS7 

Logan, 334, 381 

London, news of Vorktown received in, 
Londonderrv, 94 

'"'de^gj ^ 1 ' rCtreat 0f - f,0m TiC ° n - 

Long Island ro6. I9 6, 197, I9 8, 2 g 9 „,. the 

landing of British troops 'on, ifl' the 

battle of, 189-195 y ' e 

Long Island. S. C. ,28. 129. 130, 133 



Long Island Sound, 327 

Louis XVI., King of France, 270, 277, 
520, 527 '" 

Louisiana, the purchase of 57' 

Louisville, 339 

Lovell, 41 

Lovell James wished to remove Washing- 
ton from the command of the Conti- 
nental Army, 306 

Lo >' al, f, ts ' 399, 435, 441, 446, 47r; in the 
-South 361; security of, asked for as a 
condition of peace, 535, 536, 5™ 

Lynch on a committee 145 539 

Lynch's Creek, 375 

Lynn Haven Bay, 512 

Macdonald, Flora, 1^3 

"Mad Anthony," 458, 467 

Magaw, Colonel, 200 

Magna Charta, 175 

Maine, Arnold's march through, 106, 475 

Maine boundary, the, S33 =; 36 

Maitland, Colonel, 357. 358 

Malagrida, 531 

Malvern, 505 

Manhattan Island, 195, I99 , 5o8; f 01 - tifie d 

try \\ ashington, 510 
Marie Antoinette, 270 
Marion. Francs, 369, 373, 375, 39-', 393, 

iu 4 -f ' 4 b- 4 • , 4 '"- 43 5> «9, 44i, 446 
Martha s \ ineyard, 327 
Martin, Governor, 123 

Maryland 395; in favor of the indepen- 
dence of the Colonies, [57 
Massachusetts, 53. S7 , 65. 66. 118. 121 125 
156. 234, 243, 248, 267, 325; delegates 
at first Congress from, 4-7; the culmina- 
tion of resistance to England in ^6 et 
seq.; the Provincial Congress of, 29 30 
53. 99. no; delegates from, at the'sec- 
ond Congress, 54 
Matthews, General. 455. 456 
Maurepas, 267 

Mawhood, Colonel, at Princeton, 218 
Maxuel 77, .,83. 3,9, 47o; encounter of, 

with Howe, 284 
Mayham, Lieut.-Colonel, 453 
McClary, Major Andrew, the death of, at 

Bunker Hill, 90 
McCrea, Miss, 235, 236 
McDonough, 563 
McDougal, General, 198 
McDowell, 382 
McGowan's Ford, 412 
Ale Henry, 484 
McLane, Captain, 464 
-Med ford, 32 

Mercer at Princeton, 21S 
Mercer, Fort, attacked, 296 
Merriam's Corners, 46 
Mexican War, the, 573 
Middlebrook, 281, 327 
Middlesex elections', the, 14 
-Mifflin, Thomas, an opponent of Wash- 
ington, 310; put under Washington's 
orders, 31 1 
Mifflin, Fort, 295, 296 
Miller, Fort, 234 

Millstone, the, 'near Princeton -21 
Ministry, the British, 228, 229, 230, >6- 270 
315, 317, 33i, 353. 367. 47i. '497? 530' 
532 .536. 567. See North, Lord, and 
Kockingham, Lord 
Minute Men the, 30, 50, 51. 52; the captain 
of. warned at Medford by Revere 32- 
aroused at Lexington by Bowman,' 35-' 
the fight at Concord Bridge, 45- their 



6oo 



INDEX 



mode of fighting, 46-49; at Bunker Hill, 
89; m North Carolina, 123, 1 55 

Mischianza, the, .;i<> 

Mississippi River, the, 337. 352. 453. 535. 
5,;o; proposed to England as the western 
boundary of the United States, 534 

Mississippi Valley, the, 330. 331 

.Mohawk River, the, 106, 155. 231, 242, 

249 
.Monk's I orner, 431 
Monmouth, the battle of, 319-323, 3-25, 

400; results of the battle. 651, 652 
Monmouth Court House, 319 
Monroe. James. 573, 57s 
Monroe Doctrine, the, 563, 575 
Montgomery, 49, 68, 471: capture of 

Montreal by, [06; joined Arnold, 107; 

death of, 108 
Montgomery, Fort, 255 
Montreal, captured by Montgomery, 106; 

the Americans obliged to withdraw 

from, ioij 

Moore, Thomas, 504 

Morgan forced to surrender at Quebec, 
to8 

Morgan, Daniel, 248, 250, 256, 261, 396, 
|in. 411, (.12, pi. 445; the story of his life, 
(.00 et seq.; Ids engagement with Tarle- 
ton, 401-405; Ids victory, 406-408; treat- 
ment of Congress of, 477 

Morris, Gouverneur, 306, 49b 

\loriis. Robert, 150. 507. 509; account of, 
4115 et seq. : the libei alitj of, 558 

Morristown, 281; mutiny at, 493 

Motte, Fort, 431, 432 

Moulton's Point, 79 

Moultrie. William, 355, 356; in South 
Carolina, 126 et seq.; his defence of 
Fori Sullivan, 129 et seq. 

Moultrie, Fort, 36 j 

Mount Vernon, 514. 549, 551 

Mowatt, Captain, the destruction of Fal- 
mouth by, i-i 

Muhlenberg, General, 459 

Murfree. Major, 459 

Napoleon, 554, 563 

Narrows, the. 325 

Xeilson's Ferry, 432 

Nelson, 513 

Neversink Hills, the, 319 

New Bedford, 70, 326 

New Hampshire, 53. 242, 243; uncertainty 

of the position of. 140 
New I lav en. ij 1 

New Jersey, [46, [98, 215, 27,4. 281, 282, 

306, 318". 7,27. 4 441. 450. 457, 400. 

511, 554, (124; sustained Congress in the 
movement for independence, 157; rav- 
ages of the British in. 205; advanci oi 
Knyphausen into. 470: mutiny in, 493; 
British troops quartered in, 534 

New London, 

\i u 1 Orleans, 563 

New Salem, 484 

New York, 191. 196. 255. 279. 282, 283, 281, 
299, 310. 318. <2 4 . .525. 32''. 327. 3--8. 353. 3''-'. 
448. 453. 455. ^~>>■ (63, i<>7. i<>8. 170. 47-. 
1-0. 100, 502; 507. 508. 509, 514. 522. 530. 
10. 550; the first object ot British at- 
tack, [84 et seq.: destruction of, pro- 
posed to Congress, 105; head-quarters ot 
thi British in, 208; the retreat of Clin- 
ton to. 3J3; a movement on. feigned by 
Washington, 51 1 

New York, the State of. 59, 63, 1 |". 

228, 234. 248, 261, 80, ML 45/". 



476; representatives of, in the second 
Congress, 58; in favor of independence, 
157; hut refused to vote, 158, 159; at- 
tacks of Hamilton on the frontier of, 
352: expedition of Sullivan against the 
Indians in. 418 

New York, the Provincial Congress of, 
the plan of toi reconciliation, 139 

Newburg, 540 

.Newcastle. 198 

Newfoundland, 325; fisheries of, in the 
Paris treaty, 534, 535, 536, 539 

Newport, 324. 328, 471, 472, 400, 507, 
510; cannon at. removed from the reach 
of the British, 29; the attack on, 323-327 

Newspapers. 152 

New town. 468 

Nichols, 243 

Ninety-six, 433. 434. 435 

Norfolk, the burning of, 122 

North. Lord, 53, 143. [60, 359, 529, 530; 
overwhelmed by the news oi Saratoga, 
269. See Ministry, the British 

North Bridge, the fight at. 45 

North Carolina, 372, 382. 392, 401. 432; 
attitude of. toward the Crown at the 
outbreak of the Revolution, 123; raided 

by Cornwallis, 120; arrival of Ik- Kalb 
in. 373; not 111 danger of British attack, 
426; a raid in, 441 

North River, 100. See Hudson River 

\ort beast lc. 482, 483 

Norwich, 473 

1)01 1 c n ee River, 354 
( •'! lara. deneral, 525 

< )hio River, the, 333, 339 

Old North Church, in Roston, the, lan- 
tern-, displayed from the belfry of. by 
Paul Revere, 32 

Oliver, Lieutenant-Governor, resignation 

of, 28 

Orange, the Prince of, 181 
( >rangeburg, 1.32 

Oriskany, 241. 248, 201 

Oswald. Richard, 540; the envoy of Lord 
Slu limine, 532 et seq.; negotiations of, 
534-536 

Otis, Harrison Gray, a boy when the Rev- 
olution broke out. 41 

< His, James, the declaration of. 23, 24, 

C54,' "75 

Pacolet River, 401 

Paine, Thomas, the career of, 153: the 
greal influence of his pamphlet "Com- 
mon Sense," 154, r 55 

Paoli, 290 

Paris, news of Yorktown received at, 529; 
the peace commission at. 552 et seq. 

Paris, the treaty of, 352, 559, 501; con- 
cluded, 539 

Parker, Admiral Sir Peter. 125. 135; the 
inactivity of. 128; his attack on Fort 
Sullivan, 1 jo. 150; at Charleston, 134 

Pattison, General, 467 

Paulding, 482 

Paulus Hook. 403. 464, 467 

Peace Commission, the, 31''. 317 

Pedee River, the, 375. 500, 410, 432 

Peekskill, 108 
Pendleton. Edmund, 10 

Penn. Richard, bearer of a petition of 
Congress to the King. 141: refused a 

hearing, 1 16 

Pennington Road, the, 212 

Pennsylvania, 215, 318, 333, 394, 457; the 



INDEX 



60 1 



boundary line of, 144: reluctance of, 
to begin the war, 146, 156; voted to sus- 
tain Congress, 15;: not in favor of in- 
dependence, 158, 159; not represented in 
the final vote, 159; criticism of the 
Legislature of, 31 2, 313; attacks on the 
frontier of, 33-' 
Penobscot River, the, 467; proposed as the 
eastern boundary of the United States, 

533 , „ 

Percy, Lord, 198; sent by General Gage 
to quell an uprising, 30; the march of, 
to Concord, 4c et seq. ; derided by a 
boy, 41; the withdrawal of his troops, 
50; furnished with plans of Fort Wash- 
ington, 200 

Perry, 563 

Peterloo, 555 

Petersburg, 502 

Philadelphia, 208, 300, 301, 302. 312. 313, 315. 
317, 323. 328. 353. 362, 393. 453. 457. 
403. 476, 477- 495- 5". 5i-'. 5-7. 543! 
in 1774, 1 et seq.; advance on, contem- 
plated by the British, 205: panic in, 
205, 2117; captured Hessians marched 
through, by the Americans, 212; the 
marches of Washington to, 282; taken 
possession of by Cornwallis, 290; with- 
drawal of Howe to, from Germantown, 
295; in Howe's complete possession, 
299; ovation to Howe on the occasion 
of his recall, 316; left by Clinton, 318 

Phillips, 250, 256 

Phillips, General, 499, 501, 502 

Pickens, Colonel. 355, 369. 373, 402. 405: 
at the siege of Augusta, 414, 417, 418, 
43 2 

Pigot, General, leader of the British as- 
sault at Bunker Hill, 81: retreat of, 83 

Pilot Mountain, 383 

Pitcairn, Major, ordered to Lexington, 35 

Pitfour, Lord, 380 

Pitt, William, 14, 94, 125, 450, 558. See 
Chatham, Lord 

Pitt, Fort, 345 

Point of Pork, the, 503 

Point Levi, 107 

Pomeroy, 68; arrival of, at Charlestown, 
80 

Pontiac's War, 4011 

Poor, 256, 261, 319 

Porterfield, Colonel, 375 

Portland, 121 

Portsmouth, N. H., 499, 500, 505; supplies 
at, taken from the British, 29; the plan 
of Washington to defend, 121 

Prescott, Colonel William, 74. 78, 80, 84, 
93; at Bunker Hill, yy et seq.; his call 
for reinforcements, 87; his stand at the 
third attack. 88; gave the order to re- 
treat, 89, 90 

Prescott, Dr. Samuel, bore news of the 
approach of the British to Concord. 
32-34 

Prevost, 355; to be in command of the 
southern campaign, 353; two expeditions 
sent out by, 354; his movements in 
Georgia, 355, 356; ordered by D'Estaing 
to surrender, 357; his brave defence, 358 

Prince of Wales, the, 372 

Princeton, 217, 226, 264, 281, 323, 493; 
the battle of, 218 et seq. 

Privateers, 1 10 

Pulaski, 268, 309; mortally wounded, 358 

Putnam, Israel, 196; made major-general, 
68; arrival of, at Charlestown, 80: his 
generalship at Bunker Hill, SS; in com- 



mand on Long Island, 189; failed to 
assist Washington at Trenton, 208; de- 
ceived by Clinton, 255 

Quarry Hill, seizing of stores at, by the 
British, 28 

Quebec, 400; the expedition against, 106 
et seq.; withdrawal of the American 
troops from, 109; Arnold at, 475 

Quebec Act of 1774, the, 534 

Queen Victoria, 567 

Quibbletown, 281 

Radeau, the, 230 

Randolph, Peyton, 7; elected president of 
the first Congress, 18; president of the 
second Congress, 64, 65; his successor 
from Virginia, 66 

Rahl, 198; at Trenton, 208; shot, 212 

Ramapo, 281 

Ramsour's Mills, 41 1 

Rapidan, the. 503 

Rawdon, Lord, 375, 423, 426, 431, 496, 
497; an efficient commander, 399; attack 
of, on Greene. 427, 428; went to the 
relief of Ninety-six, 434; Ninety-six 
evacuated by, 435: sailed for England, 
43'' ; captured by the French, 439 

Reading, 290 

Red Bank, 296, 299 

Reed, Joseph, 394, 477, 493 

Reedy Fork, 423 

Reform Bill, the, 555 

Revere, Paul, the organizer of a band to 
watch the movements of the British, 31; 
the ride of, 32-34 

Revolution, the American, passim; signifi- 
cance of, 12 et seep; the first bloodshed 
of, 36; its approach not recognized till 
late, 143; the meaning of. 552 et seq.; 
the effects of, on England and America, 
560 et seq. 

Revolution, the French, 553, 554, 555. 557, 
560 

Rhode Island, 325; the demand of, for a 
navy, 145: withdrawal of Clinton from, 
362, 468; departure of the French from, 
.508 

Richmond, 395, 498, 499, 501, 502, 504 

Riedesel. 250, 251, 256 

Robinson, Beverly, 479 

Rocheblave, 339; attacked at Kaskaskia, 
340-343; his escape, 344 

Rockingham, Lord, 530, 534. See Minis- 
try, the British 

Rocky Mount, 372 

Rodney, 479, 511, 513, 539. 543 

Rousseau, 276 

Roxburv, arrival of the British at, 41, 42 

Roxbury Neck. See Boston Neck 

Rugely Mills, 428 

Rutin ymede, 175 

Russell, Lord John, 172, 301 

Russia, 554, 55(1; refused troops to Eng- 
land, 181, 271; the neutrality of, 452 

Rutledge, 4 

Rutledge, John, 4, 127, 133; President of 
South Carolina, 126 

Salem, the danger of a conflict at, 29 

Salisbury. 411, 412 

Sandwich. Lord. 81. 82, 83, 93, 95 

Sandy Beach, 450 

Santee River, the, 364, 411. 414, 435, 436 

Saratoga. 374, 401, 501, 530: Burgoyne at, 
258-261; the results of, 263 et seq.; the 
news of, how received in England, 269; 



6o2 



INDEX 



the news of, in France, 270; Washington 
grateful for the victory of, 302 

Savannah, 125, 355. 357. 3<>o, 448, 514; 
captured by Campbell, 354: the decision 
of Lincoln to march against, 350; the 
attack of D'Estaing on, 358; evacuated 
by the British, 442 

Savannah River, the, 355. 35". [64 

Schuyler, Philip, 68, 242, 261, 280, 374; 
put in charge of military affairs in New 
York, 99; his need of supplies, 141; put 
down an uprising in the Mohawk, 153; 
aided Washington, 207; his difficulties 
111 the northern campaign, 232, 233; Ins 
method of delaying the British advance, 
234-236; his orders disregarded by Stark, 
-'4? : superseded by dates. 248 

Schuylkill, the, 289, -'95 

Scott at Trenton, 217 

Seahury. Samuel, 152 

"Serapis," the, 1 

Sevier, 382, 386, 389 

Shabbakong Creek. 217 

Shelburne, Lord, 530. 531, 535; diplo- 
matic correspondence of Franklin with, 

532-534; Franklin's dexterous method of 

dealing with, 540 
Shelby, Isaac, 381, 382, 383, 386, 3«9 
Sheridan, 3 io 
Sherman, Roger, 4: on a committee to 

draft the Declaration of Independence, 

Shippen, Miss. 477 

Silver Creek, 383 

Simcoe, 503 

Six Nations, the, 468 

Skenesboro', 63, 233, 235 

'"Skinners," 482 

Slavery, the paragraph regarding, in the 

Declaration of Independence, 167 
Smith, Joshua llett. 47'). 480, 181, 489 
Smith. Lieutenant-Colonel, the march of, 

to Lexington, 34. 35! the advance of his 

troops to Concord, 40 et sec].; the return 

of, to Lexington, 46 
Somerset Court House, 221 

South Carolina, 354. 355, 35I6, 357. 3°7. 37 2 > 
136, 530. 572; at the outbreak of the Revo- 
lution, 123. 124; the campaign in. [26 el 
seq.; the victory in, 135; the votes of, 
in Congress. 150: the helplessness of, 
361; ravaged by the British, 3O4, 365; 
nearly clear of the enemy. 432 

Spam. '152. 539, 540. 54i. 554. 555. 556, 5<n: 
persuaded t<> send aid to America, 267; 
reluctance of, to act with France, 269; 
indifference of. 271; the hostility of, 
330, 331: exhausted by war, 450, 451; 
jay an envoy to, 455, 532; aid of, to 
be sought in an invasion of Florida, 506; 
di-.rre.ndcd by Franklin in the peace 
negotiations, 533. 535: opposition of Jay 
in negotiations with, 535: the war of 
the United States with, 567, 568, 574 

Spartanburg, 401 

Spear. Major, 288 

-[11 in . 1 . OS 

Springfield, 470 

St. Augustine, 354 

St. Clair, at Fort Ticonderoga, 23-'. 233; 

arrival of. in the South, 442 
St. Johns. 230. 474; captured by Mont- 

11 1 \ . in'. 
St. lohn's, ( leoi gia, 66 
St. Lawrence River, 474; campaigns in the 

valley of. 106 et seq 
St. Leger, Colonel, 231. 242: his attack 



on Fort Stanwix, 236-241; his defeat, 
248 

St. Simon, 512 

Stamp Act, the, 25, 2b, 150 

Stanwix. Fort, to he reduced by t he Brit- 
ish, 231; besieged, 236 et seq.; the siege 
raised, 241 

Stark, John, 80, 87, 212, 261: at Charles- 
town on the Connecticut, 242; at the 
hattle id' Bennington, 243-247; at Fort 
Edward, 258 

Staten Island, 185, 281, 470, 511 

Sterling. Lord, in command at the battle 
of Long Island. 190 

Steuben, Baron, 309, 395, 498, 502, 503; 
tin value of Ins services to Washington 
at Valley Forge, 314; assigned to the 
Southern Department, 394 

Stevens, Colonel, 375. 376, 378. 419 

Stewart, Lieutenant-Colonel, 111 command 
at Charleston, 439; the retreat of, 440, 
441; confined in Charleston, 442 

Stony Brook, 221 

Stony Point, 45(1. 459. 467. 468 

Strachey, Henry, peace negotiations of, 
536, 539 

Sullivan. General John, 68, 189, 289; his 
doctrine of State rights, iS; captured by 
the British, 100: aided Washington, 207; 
at the attack on Trenton. 211. 212; his 
failure to guard the fords of the Bran- 
dywine, 287; his army routed, 288; on 
the offensive at Germantown, 291-295; 
at Newport, 325-327: expedition of, 
against the Six Nations. 4ns; sent to 
quell a mutiny, 493 

Sullivan's Island, 126, 128 

Sumter, Colonel Thomas, 369, 373. 392, 

393, 414, 427. 435, 446: the wrong in- 
flicted upon, 370; the attack on I luck, 
371; attack of, on the British at Rocky 
Mount. .^7^; asked for some of < lates's 
men. 375; his forces destroyed, 379: re- 
pulsed Tarleton, 393: Orangehurg taken 
hy. 432; eluded hy Raw don, 434 

Sunbury, 354; reduced, 355 

"Swamp Fox." 369 

Swedes Fort, the, 289 

Sycamore Shoals. 382 

Tallmadge, Major Benjamin, 483 
Tarleton, 370, 379, 380, 386, 390, 400. 410, 
412. 41(1. 418. 420, 503, 505. 5 in; cru- 
elty of. in South Carolina, 3(54: repulsed 
by Sumter. 303: detached to follow 
Morgan, 401; his attack on Morgan. 402. 

405 
1 ennessee, 38 1 
Tennessee River, the. 339 
Texas, 573 
Thomas, 68 
Thomson. Charles, elected Secretary of 

the first Congress, 18 
Thomson, of Orangeburg, 127: sent by 

Moultrie to watch Clinton. 1 20, 13" 
Ticonderoga, Fort, 50, 113. 138. 141, 225, 

228, 201. 270. 474- 475: the capture of, 

(.2 et seq.; St. Clair attacked ill. s.^, 

233; American prisoners released by an 

attack on. 250 
Tories. 106, 354- 300. 418, 4/-; powei Of, 

in New York. 18 1 

"Tornado," 458 

Townshend, Lord. 407 

Tremont Street, m Boston, 4' 
Trenton, jjt,. 242. 264, .W.',. 32<G advance 
of the British to, 205; the British sur- 



INDEX 



603 



prised in, 208-215; the battle of Tren- 
ton, 210, 217 

Troublesome Creek, 424 

Trumbull, John, 152; his satire of Mc- 
Fingal, 153 ,. 

Tryon, Governor, 106, 121, 184; expedi- 
tion of, into Connecticut, 455 

Turgot opposed to Yergennes, 267 

Turkey, 555 r „,. 

Tybee, 354; arrival of Clinton at, 362 

United States of America, the, the 
recognition of, desired by Jay, 535; the 
effects of the Revolution on England 
and, 560 et seq. ; England's treatment 
of, after the Revolution, 561, 502; the 
Constitution of, 572 

Valcour, 228 

Valcour Bay, 476 

Valley Forge, 300, 312, 313, 318, 324, 460; 
hardships of the winter in, 303-306; re- 
lief from hardship at, 314 

Van Buskirk, 464 

Van Wart, 4S2 

Vaughan, 255; a cause of alarm to Gates, 
258 

Venezuela, 566 

Vergennes, 271, 295, 331, 528; sent M. 
de Bonvouloir on a secret mission to 
America, 266; opposed in the French 
Cabinet, 2(17; interviewed by Deane, 
268; received Franklin, 269; pleased by 
the victory at Saratoga,' 270; the reli- 
ance of, on Spain, 330; negotiations of 
Franklin with, 533, 534 

Vermont, 59, 243, 247 

Verplanck's Point, 456, 468 

Versailles, American commissioners re- 
ceived by the French King at, 270; 
the news of Yorktown, how received at, 
528 

Ville de Paris, the, 514 

Vincennes, 344, 345; arrival of Hamilton 
at, 34(5; Hamilton attacked in, 347-351 

Viomenil, the Baron de, 519 

Virginia, 59, 65, 66, 126, 265, m, 344, 
380, 392, 400, 410, 501, 502, 503, 507, 508, 
511, 526, 572; delegates at first Ameri- 
can Congress from, 7 et seq. : the at- 
tacks of Lord Dunmore, 1 21-123; resist- 
ance of, to British power, 146; favored 
independence, 156; attacks on the. fron- 
tier of, 3,32; Clark aided by, 338; pris- 
oners sent to, 352; the response of, to 
the call for men, 373; cleared of the 
enemy, 441; raid of Matthews in, 455; 
raids of the British in. 497 et seq.; im- 
portance of the situation in, 500 

Voltaire, meeting of, with Franklin, 272- 
275; his scepticism, 275, 276 

Vulture, the, 479, 480, 481; escape of Arnold 
on, 487 

Wabash River, the, 347 

Wade, 4S7 

Walpole, Horace, 12 

Walpole, Sir Robert, 13 

War, the Seven Years', 12 

War of 1812, the, 563 

Ward, General Artemus, 68, 78; his opin- 
ion of the plan to take an offensive posi- 
tion against the Britisli in Boston, 72, 73 

Warner, Seth, 247; Crown Point seized by, 
63 

Warren, Joseph, 52; summoned from Bos- 
ton to quell disorder in Cambridge, 28; 



warned people of the approach of the 
British, 32; arrival of, at Charlestown, 
80; killed at Bunker Hill, 89 
Washington, George, 93, 118, 135. J 38, 
142, 143, 144, 146, 149, 150, 160, 180, 183, 
248, 261, 269, 270, 279, 283, 295, 31b, 
317, 328, 35(1, 361, 362, 374. 394, 395. 
401, 408, 409, 415, 459, 468, 478, 483, 
495, 496, 497, 501, 502, 508, 512, 513, 530, 
571, 575; at the first Continental Con- 
gress, 9-12; a leader at the second Con- 
gress, 57; chosen commander of the 
Continental Army, 67; his acceptance of 
the command, 68; left Philadelphia, 98, 
99: took command of the Continental 
troops on Cambridge Common, 100; his 
mode of organizing the army, 101-104; 
sent expeditions to Canada, 106-109; be- 
sieged Boston, 1 10; his victory over the 
British in Boston, 114 et seq.; bis plan 
to fortify Portsmouth, 121; his need 
of supplies, 141; empowered by Con- 
gress to recruit a new army, 145; his 
conservatism, 151; his complaint to 
Congress, 158; desired reinforcements, 
159; left Boston with his army, for New 
York, 184; the fight for the Hudson, 
185-201; ordered the evacuation of Fort 
Lee, 202; in hard straits, 205 et seq.; 
given full power by Congress, 207; the 
night attack of, on Trenton, 208-212; 
at the battle of Trenton, 215, 217; at 
the battle of Princeton, 218 et seq.; 
situation confronting, 223-227; the cam- 
paign of 1777 in the middle States, 280; 
his movements 111 the winter and spring, 
281; marched to Philadelphia, 282; his 
army encamped at Chad's Ford, 284; 
determined to attack Knyphausen, 287; 
relinquished the idea of moving upon 
Knyphausen, 288; faced Howe at West 
Chester, 289; tricked by Howe, 290; 
plan of, to fall on Germantown, 291, 
292; Howe's plan to drive him beyond 
the mountains, 299; went into winter 
quarters at Valley Forge, 300; his fail- 
ures complained of in Congress, 301; 
grateful for the victory at Saratoga, 302; 
his camp at Valley Forge, 303 et seq.; 
criticised in Congress by Clark, 306; 
plotted against by Conway, 309-311; 
contrast between the conditions in his 
army and among the Britisli soldiers, 
312 et seq.; assumed the offensive, 315; 
at the battle of Monmouth, 318-323: the 
end of the campaign, 324; persuaded 
D'l'staing to go to Newport, 325; held 
Clinton fast, 327; urged the withdrawal 
of Lincoln from Charleston, 364: sent 
De Kalb South, 373; allowed by Con- 
gress to select a commander, 393; Mor- 
gan a friend of, 400; Wayne sent South 
by, 441; determination of, to keep the 
Hudson open. 449; his pleading with 
Congress for increased resources, 45?; 
his hardships, 454; a defensive attitude 
the only possible one, 455; decision of, 
to take Stony Point, 456: the reply of 
Wayne to, 458; reluctant to approve one 
of Lee's plans, 463; planned an expedi- 
tion in western New York, 468; lack of 
the support of Congress, 469; threw 
Clinton's force back on New York, 470, 
471; his bitter letters to Congress, 472; 
departure of, for Hartford, 473; fond- 
ness of, for Arnold, 476; his laudatory 
reprimand of Arnold, 477; plot of Ar- 



604 



INDEX 



nuld to lure him to Wist Point, 479; 
letter of Andre to, 484; his conduct, 
after the discovery of Arnold's treason, 
487 et seq.; retirement of, into winter 
quarters, 490; lus outlook, in the fall 
of 1780, 491, 49-'; quelled a mutiny, 
41, .i ; letter of, to Laurens, 494; Lafay- 
ette detached l>>. to pursue Arnold, 199; 
determination ofj to deal a decisive 
blow, 506; consultation of, with De 
Rochambeau, 5117: preparations of, for 
action, 509 et seq.; the feigned attack 
on New York, 511; appeal of, to De 
Grasse, 514: at Yorktown, 515 et seq.; 
surrender of Cornwallis to, 525; after 
the victory at Yorktown, 543 et seq.; 
Ins way of dealing with liis discontented 
army, 544-546; Ins unselfishness, 54V : 
took leave of his officers, 550 

Washington, .Mrs., 10 

Washington, Colonel William, 396, 402, 
405, 1 in. 120, 423, 428, 44'' 

Washington, Fort, 229; advance of the 
British on, [99; taken, -'00-202 

Wataree River, the, 4.59 

Watauga River, the, 382 

Watertown, 99 

Watson, 428, 431 

Watson, Fort, 4.;.i 

W axhavt , 370, 386 

Wayne, General Vnthony, 288, 289, 319, 
404. 467; surprised at Paoli by the 
British, 290; Ins battery at White- 
marsh. 295; sent by Washington to re- 
inforce Greene, 441: detached for opera- 
tion in Georgia, 442; tribute of, to 
Greene, 147; account of, 456-458; reply 
• if, to Washington, 458; attack of, on 
Stony Point, 459. 4(10; ordered to join 
Lafayette, 501, 502; conjunction of, 
with Lafayette, 50.;, 504; at Green 
Spring, 505 

W ehster, 377 

Webster, Captain, 487 



Webster, Daniel, 487 
Wedderburn, 58 
Weedon, 515 

Wellington, 302 

West ( hest< 1 

West Indies, the, 357, 507, 514, 562 

West Point, 327, 456, 484, 487, 502; plot 

of Arnold to give over, 478 et seq. 
W estham, 499 
Wethersfield, 507 
W higs, tin-. 136, 530 
Whiskey Rebellion, the, 573 
White Plains, 198 
Whitemarsh, 295, 299, 300, 502 
Wilkes, 15 

Wilkinson, resigned the secretaryship of a 

board of war. 3 1 1 

W'illet, Colonel, at Fori Stanwix, 240 

William of Orange, 457 

Williams, 1 1 

Williams, 482 

Williams, Colonel Otho, 375, 377, 396, 
j.i<j, 418, 446 

Williamsburg, 504, 514 

Wilmington, 1 Hi.. 283 

Wilmington, S. ('., 418, 419, 425; evacu- 
ated, 441 

Winnsborough, 392 

Wolfe, 399 

W ood ( reek, 235 

Wooster, 68 

Wright, Sir James, 124, 123 

Wyoming, 145 

Yadkin River, 411, 412, 414 

Yorktown, 324, 441, 530, 543, 544, 553, 
559; fortified by Cornwallis, 505; ad- 
vance of the Americans to, 511, 514, the 
march to, 315: the siege of, 516 et seq.; 
Washington's generalship at, 522: the 
surrender at, 525-527; the news of, re- 
ceived in France, 528, 529; the news of, 
in England, 529 et seq.; Washington's 
operations after the victory, 543 et seq. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



011 698 682 6 



